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Russia, West accuse each other of hypocrisy on Ukraine

03 May 2014 01:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Western powers and Russia on Friday used an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to accuse each other of hypocrisy and double standards in confronting the escalating crisis in Ukraine, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The heated exchange came during another inconclusive meeting of the 15-nation council on the crisis. Russia called for the session to condemn what it described as a "punitive" and "criminal" Ukrainian military operation in the southeastern city of Slaviansk against pro-Russian rebels.

The Security Council has held more than a dozen meetings on the Ukraine crisis but has taken no formal action due to the deep disagreements among Russia, Britain, France and the United States - four of its five veto-wielding permanent members.

In their speeches, Britain and Lithuania voiced surprise at Russia's willingness to condemn what they said was a measured and justifiable operation by Kiev against armed pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow while keeping silent about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's attacks on his own people.

"The scale of Russian hypocrisy is breathtaking," British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said. "Russia stoutly supports, and indeed arms, the most repressive regimes in the world, notably Syria, a regime which brutally suppresses dissent without any sense of restraint or concern for the protection of civilians."

"Russia's synthetic indignation over Ukraine's proportionate and measured actions convinces no one," he added.

Lithuanian Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite echoed his remarks.

"As far as punitive actions go, let us be frank - there were more victims on Thursday in Aleppo, in a mass of bloody rubble and body parts after missiles and improvised barrel bombs killed at least 33 people and wounded many others," she said.

"This punitive action has so far not been condemned by Russia, like many similar acts by the Assad regime before," she said.

Assad's ally Russia, backed by China, has vetoed three Security Council resolutions that would have condemned the Syrian government and threatened it with sanctions over its actions in the Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year.