At U.N., Russia Points to Ultranationalist Threats in Ukraine

International New York times, March 3, 2014 By Nick Cumming-Bruce

GENEVA – As Russian troops consolidated their hold on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said Monday that the troops were there to protect ethnic Russians from attacks by ultranationalists.

In a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council shortly after arriving in Geneva, Mr. Lavrov said ultranationalists in Ukraine had threatened the lives and religion of the entire Russian-speaking population, and added that “new provocations are being committed,” including against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Crimea.

Mr. Lavrov appeared to be referring to protests that led to the ouster of President Viktor F. Yanukovych, claiming that demonstrators had burned buildings and used “extremist anti-Russian and anti-Semitic slogans.”

Mr. Lavrov said, in comments that were not part of his prepared speech, that it was necessary to keep Russian troops in Ukraine “until the normalization of the political situation.”

With Ukraine and Russia teetering on the brink of hostilities, Mr. Lavrov called on Western powers to “put aside geopolitical calculations” and put the interests of the Ukrainian people first.

Reverting to his prepared text, Mr. Lavrov continued by saying that human rights were too important to be used as a bargaining chip. Mr. Lavrov was to hold a meeting later in Geneva with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who on Sunday sent his deputy, Jan Eliasson, to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to make a personal assessment of developments and then brief him on steps the United Nations could take “to support the de-escalation of the situation.”

Mr. Ban told reporters that he would discuss with Mr. Lavrov ways to de-escalate the crisis, and that the main purpose of Mr. Eliasson’s visit to Kiev was to convey to Ukraine’s authorities the importance of refraining from inflammatory statements and engaging in direct dialogue with Russia.

The United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, was also scheduled to address the council session on Monday, but pulled out because of the crisis in Ukraine. Amid reports of new movements of Russian troops into the Crimean peninsula, the seven Western members of the Group of 8 industrial powers announced that they were temporarily suspending their participation in preparations for a summit meeting to be hosted by President Vladimir V. Putin in Sochi, Russia, in June.