Lithuania: Moscow wrongfully accused Ukraine at UN

This was Vilnius’ official to Moscow’s claims that Lithuania, the United States, and the United Kingdom, allegedly blocked its proposal to condemn Ukraine, which, in Russia‘s words, “hampers a truly independent and unbiased international investigation into the tragedy” of the Malaysian airliner.

“The Russian-proposed draft report of the Security Council urged to condemn the combat actions in Ukraine’s Donetsk region and the hampering of the investigation of the Malaysian Airlines airplane, however, did not mention the actions of Russian-supported separatists,” the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s Public Relations Department said in a comment to BNS.

According to the statement, the Russian document aimed to censure legitimate actions of Ukraine, therefore, Lithuania proposed draft changes to include ongoing separatist activity.

“In the text, Russia aimed to create a precedent of censuring Ukraine’s legitimate struggle against armed separatists and accuse Ukraine of hampering the airliner investigation. Just like some other members of the United Nations Security Council, Lithuania’s permanent mission to the United Nations submitted a few editorial proposals to include the combat actions of the separatists and their role in hindering access to the accident site (the proposal was to include a reference about the disaster zone controlled by unlawful military groups),” reads the comment.

“Submitting proposals to the text is normal practice. However, Russia, which has already proposed a number of drafts on Ukraine, does not want to negotiate, immediately recalls the draft and starts to go after the countries behind the proposals – in this case, the three countries that submitted editorial proposals aimed at clarifying who is actually in control of the disaster zone,” the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said.

On Tuesday evening, the Russian Foreign Ministry publicly accused the US, the UK, and Lithuania of stymieing a proposal to publish a press release about Ukraine’s failure to follow the requirements to stop fighting in the debris area.