Statement by the Foreign Ministry

Submitted on Mon, 03/19/2018 - 08:29

The decision by the Ukrainian authorities, released on March 16, 2018, not to allow citizens of the Russian Federation to the Embassy and general consulates of Russia on the day of the election of the President of the Russian Federation causes nothing but indignation. Such actions are unprecedented and do not fit into generally accepted ideas about civilised countries.

The above steps contradict not only the Vienna Conventions on diplomatic and consular relations, but also international human rights standards, in particular, the provisions of the 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

One gets the impression that the Ukrainian leadership, which came to power in the wake of a coup four years ago, having provoked its own citizens in Crimea and Sevastopol to vote for accession to Russia, today, in impotent rage, decided to take it out on ordinary Russian citizens in Ukraine. Concerns about the safety of Russian diplomatic and consular institutions sound like pure hypocrisy.

We would like to note that Russia, even at the most difficult moments, never allowed itself such an attitude towards the rights of Ukrainian citizens residing in our country and never created barriers for voting in Ukrainian elections, including the election of the current president and the Verkhovna Rada.

This is open interference in the purely internal affairs of the Russian Federation that will lead to an escalation of tension amid the already fairly dysfunctional bilateral relations.

The calls of the Ukrainian side not to recognise the legitimacy of the forthcoming presidential elections of the Russian Federation are also surprising. We would like to point out that Russia does not need the Kiev regime to recognise our elections.

We expect Kiev's actions to receive principled assessments from the UN, the OSCE and other authoritative international institutions.