Syria's UN Envoy: Escalation in Ukraine Stems From West's Non-Compliance With Obligations to Russia

Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Putin stated that its goal was the "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine in order to protect people "who for eight years have been subjected to abuse, genocide by the Kiev regime." In response, the West initiated a massive campaign to put pressure on Russia.

Syria, according to the country's permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh, condemned on Monday the anti-Russian campaign initiated by Western governments and media in response to the Ukraine crisis.

"My delegation believes that this historic emergency session on the situation in Ukraine completes the anti-Russian campaign that finds its origins in the provocative and hostile rhetoric towards Russia propagated by the West to stoke tensions in Ukraine and to thereby compromise the security and territorial integrity of Russia," he said at the emergency session of the UN General Assembly.

Sabbagh went on to say that the Western media effort attempts to keep people in the West from learning the truth about what is going on in Ukraine.

The Syrian ambassador stressed that the West has been ignoring the actual state of events in Donbass since 2014, when the conflict erupted, while NATO has been attempting to establish "a zone of influence at the gates of Russia," causing people in Donetsk and Lugansk to suffer.

"The escalation of the situation between Russia and Ukraine comes from Western states not respecting their commitments towards Russia, and that’s been going on for decades. These states have ignored these legitimate security concerns of Russia and have not hesitated to provide weapons and missiles to Ukraine," Sabbagh said.

Moreover, the Syrian ambassador stressed the need of using discussion and diplomacy to resolve international and regional conflicts.

"The Syrian Arab Republic condemns the campaign organized and led by the West and their media against the Russian Federation, in particular, the deliberate spreading of fake news, of insidious allegations, as well as photos and videos that have been doctored, all of this to prevent Russia from exercising its natural right to defend its sovereignty and its security, as well as to protect its people in line with the UN charter," Sabbagh said.

Syrian Deputy FM Says US Provoked Conflict in Ukraine to Block Russia's Gas Supply to Europe

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Bashar Jaafari told Sputnik on Tuesday that the United States had been developing a plan and provoking a conflict in Ukraine to block the supply of Russia's gas to Europe long before the beginning of Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine.

"Americans were targeting Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 [gas pipelines] carrying the Russian gas to Europe before the events in Ukraine. That is why [US President Joe] Biden had summoned the Qatari emir to Washington and discussed with him Qatar's capabilities to meet Europe's gas supply needs if necessary," Jaafari said.

He said that Biden could not foresee that Russia would launch the special military operation in Ukraine, adding that the US uses economic means to achieve political goals.

"The West did understand that it was pushing the Ukrainian president into a conflict in order to explode the situation in Ukraine. That is why they held a summit of gas exporting countries in Doha and then summoned the Qatari emir. All this shows that President Putin has been in a position of a defendant rather than an attacker all this time," the deputy minister said.

Moscow justified the current special operation by noting the fact that Kiev for eight years sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk agreements signed in 2015 in order to resolve the conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Donbass republics, in particular in the field of granting intrastate autonomy, such as for the use of the Russian language.

In recent months, tensions in the region and on European security issues, in particular on issues of mutual security guarantees between the United States with NATO and Russia, given the reluctance of the West to abandon expansion to the east, which is perceived by Moscow as a direct threat to its security, continued to grow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry presented two security treaties to NATO and the US in December, with the goal of reducing tensions and restoring strategic stability to Europe. The treaties aimed to have both sides minimize the deployment of troops, missile systems, aircraft, and vessels in areas where they could be perceived as a threat by the other side. The draft agreements also included a demand that NATO stop expanding eastward into the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine, and limit military deployments in nations that joined the bloc after the Cold War ended.

The US and NATO openly and publicly rejected the Russian proposals, but expressed optimism that discussions would continue.