Moscow strives for Ukrainian peace process

Moscow is taking efforts to revive the peaceful process in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

"We are convinced that the peace process needs to be revived and necessary efforts are being taken for this, primarily to start a full-fledged, sustainable and direct dialogue between Kiev government and insurgents," Lavrov told reporters after meeting with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Liberman.

"We see Kiev's attempts to settle down the crisis through military way, namely to suppress the eastern Ukraine, as a disruption of the peaceful process," Tass news agency quoted the minister as saying.

These attempts have no future and the West should not encourage Kiev's military actions, Lavrov stressed.

He blamed the West for "chronic custom" to accuse Russia and Ukrainian insurgents of everything happened in the conflicting areas, citing Saturday's deadly shelling of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol as a fresh example, which killed at least 30 people and injured almost 100 others.

According to Lavrov, contacts between Kiev and Donbass militia representatives are expected to take place in the next few days, and the Russian side is trying to facilitate the dialogue.

Meanwhile, Lavrov said that it is "naive" to expect the pro-independence insurgents to use "peaceful rhetoric" when government forces went on attacking under the order of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Lavrov stressed the militia has opened fire to destroy the Ukrainian forces' positions where heavy artillery was deployed "in violation of Minsk agreements."

The latest outbreak of violence in eastern Ukraine, which began two weeks ago, marked a new wave of escalation of the nine-month-old conflict.

Last September, Kiev government and representatives of self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk republics signed a memorandum in Belarussian capital city of Minsk, outlining the ways of political solution of the crisis and declaring ceasefire on the line dividing the confronting sides.

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