Russia slams UN report on Ukraine’s eastern regions

Russia has strongly slammed a recent United Nations (UN) report on the current situation in eastern Ukraine, calling it “politically motivated.”

The condemnation by the Russian Foreign Ministry came in a statement following the release of the UN report earlier on Friday.

The UN report warned of an alarming deterioration of human rights in eastern Ukraine and expressed deep concern over rights violations in the Crimea Peninsula, which rejoined Russia in March after a referendum.

“The complete lack of objectivity, blatant discrepancies and double standards leave no doubts that (the report’s) authors were performing a political put-up job aimed at clearing the name of the self-declared authorities in Kiev,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The Russian ministry added that the UN report ignored “the crudest violations of human rights by the self-proclaimed Kiev authorities.”

The interim Kiev government has been staging military operations in the eastern and southern regions in a bid to root out pro-Russia protests.

Since the launch of the military offensive in mid-April, dozens of people have been killed and many others injured.

On May 12, the two eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence following local referendums, in which the regions’ residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Kiev.

The referendums echoed a March vote in Crimea that led to the reunification of the peninsula with the Russian Federation. Nearly 97 percent of participants in Crimea’s referendum voted for rejoining Russia.