Russia runs anti-Kiev campaign: Ukraine

Ukraine’s acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya says Russia runs a “propaganda campaign” to persuade world powers not to recognize the results of the country’s recent presidential election.

Deshchytsya made the remarks in an article published in Kyiv Post daily on Saturday.

He said Moscow was employing every means to unsettle the country’s new leaders.

“Five days since [the] election, there has been no official recognition yet. Obviously, the Russian Federation doesn’t have legal grounds to question the election’s legitimacy,” he said.

He further noted that the “massive information campaign [the] Kremlin has launched these days, with an avalanche of double-talk and fake news, signals one thing — this is Russia’s last chance to try shifting the balance of international public opinion.”

The comments by Deshchytsya come as the acting government in Kiev has been staging military operations in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine since mid-April in a bid to root out pro-Moscow protests.

Ukraine’s President-elect Petro Poroshenko has also ruled out negotiations with pro-Russia activists, vowing to continue military operations in the country’s southeastern provinces.

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

The referendums followed a similar vote in Crimea in March 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.