Russia has refuted a statement credited to the Ambassador of Ukraine to Nigeria, Mr. lvan Kholostenko, stressing that the Ukrainian envoy distorted the facts when he claimed that Russia attacked and killed civilians during air attacks in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
The Ukrainian envoy’s claim was published in a national daily on June 11, even as the Russian Mission accused Kiev of using civilians as human shields and denounced the United States and its NATO allies for backing Ukraine to continue its “atrocities.”
Addressing newsmen yesterday in Abuja, the press officer of the Russian Embassy, Yury Paramonov, said the ambassador’s comments “distort the facts and maliciously mislead readers.”
The spokesman disclosed that on July 8, the Russian Armed Forces launched a strike against Ukrainian military facilities in retaliation for attacks on Russian economic enterprises. The embassy stated that “military targets were precisely and professionally destroyed; no strikes were made on civilian infrastructure.”
The Russian spokesman blamed Ukrainian forces for attacking civilians and blaming it on Russia. It said that Ukrainian air defence missiles veered off course and hit residential buildings and social facilities, including a children’s hospital in Kyiv.
The embassy stated, “It is pro-Bandera supporters who are intentionally deploying air defence systems in residential areas, using civilians as a human shield.”
Mr Yury vehemently condemned the Ukrainian Ambassador’s comments, describing it as inhumane and cynical manipulations of facts by Ukrainian diplomats with support from the US and its allies
The Russian embassy accused the US and its Western allies of having an evil agenda to undermine the Russian Federation, stressing that they are complicit in killing innocent civilians. It added that the US was involved in a recent attack on Sevastopol, which killed or wounded over 150 people, including children.
Yury said “Massacres and mass killings of civilians have already become a notorious style of warfare for the Ukrainian army as well as for the US and NATO forces.”
The Russian Embassy, however, reaffirmed its commitment to presenting an accurate picture of events to the media and the public.
It said, “We will once again remind everyone who is truly responsible for the deaths of innocent children and who directly and indirectly contributes to it.
“Western Officials thus far continue to criminally hush up Zelensky regime’s barbarous actions and welcome such outrageous statements as one by the Ukraine’s ambassador. Once again, we strongly condemn such inhumane and cynical manipulation of facts by Ukrainian diplomats like Mr Kholostenko, as well as the encouraging position of their Western puppet masters, who undoubtedly set the agenda for the Ukrainian embassy in Nigeria as well as for all its embassies all over the world,” he said.
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