Pyongyang, March 14 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs DPRK)   

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Amid the unprecedentedly increased pressure campaign against Russia by the United States and the West, President Putin exchanged the views with the French President and the German Chancellor through the telephone conversations on the issue of coordinating the Ukrainian situation.

President Putin affirmed the principled stand that Russia’s mission of military operation will be accomplished without fail under any circumstances, saying that the coordination of Ukrainian situation will be likely only when the status of Ukraine is confirmed as a neutral and non-nuclear state by means of demilitarization and denazification and when the Russia’s demands for the recognition of its sovereignty over the Crimea and the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk are accepted.

Earlier, Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, expressed his strong denunciation on several occasions including in the video speech at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, stating that Ukrainian crisis is an outcome of the connivance of Western protectors at the criminal regime, and that the current Kiev regime - a servant faithful to its master - is the typical example which shows that a regime can be permitted to do anything including human rights violation, murder and dissemination of Neo-Nazism if it becomes frenzied in implementing the policy for containing Russia.

As is widely known, the U.S., by galvanizing its allies in the wake of the cold war, has consistently pressured Russia in the political, economic, diplomatic, military, and all other areas, talking about “threat” from Russia.

In particular, they concentrated so-called “Collective Defense System” of NATO on the east side, deployed large troops and military infrastructure near the border of Russia, and schemed to turn Ukraine into a bridgehead of the pressure campaign against Russia by inducing Ukraine to join NATO.

Russia, on its part, reacted by declaring the Ukraine’s membership of NATO as the “red line” that can be no more conceded, and demanded provision of a legally binding security guarantee including stop to NATO’s eastward expansion and prohibition of deployment of attacking weapon system to the Russia’s neighboring states. But the U.S. and the West, being engrossed in the anti-Russia mania, flatly rejected this demand.

Besides, the U.S. is going hell-bent on fueling an international pressure to stifle Russia by means of unprecedented sanctions, and at the same time, it is further aggravating situation around Ukraine by providing it with huge military aid including various weapons and ammunition.

All the above facts clearly show that the root of and the responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis lie in the U.S. and its vassal forces, and that the mastermind who endangers global peace and security of humankind is none other than the U.S.