Churkin
© Associated Press Photo/Seth Wenig
Ukraine's decision to block the adoption by the UN Security Council of a statement dedicated to late Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin is "beyond good and evil," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a joint press conference with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstroem following their meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, February 21.

"I know how the UNSC works. I have almost no doubt that [Ukraine's] permanent representative would not have done this on his own. This means that he was ordered to do it," Lavrov elaborated.

"This goes against Christian values. It's beyond good and evil. Thanks to the current Ukrainian authorities, however, we are accustomed to the fact that someone in their country treats Russians, and anyone who refuses to dance to the pipe of neo-Nazis, precisely like that," Lavrov said.


Earlier today, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook that this decision is "the essence" of the current Ukrainian authorities."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also commented that Ukraine's behavior is "not at all as important as the loss that Russia's diplomacy had suffered."

Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin passed away on Monday, February 20, in New York. Churkin had served as Russia's permanent representative to the UN and the Russian representative in the UN Security Council from April 2006. The diplomat would have turned 65 on Tuesday, February 21.