MOSCOW, May 5 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry has prepared for President Vladimir Putin a report on human rights violations in Ukraine in the period from late November 2013 to the end of March 2014, the Kremlin announced on its website.
The report is based on information from Russian, Ukrainian and Western media sources, statements by representatives of the current authorities in Kiev and their supporters, eyewitness accounts and on-the-spot observations, and interviews with Russian NGOs, the statement says.
According to it, “The data in the report make it possible to assert that severe violations of the basic human rights’ principles and norms have taken on a mass nature in Ukraine.”
The main purpose of the report is to provide the public with facts and evidence of the events in Ukraine, thus helping to form non-politicized and unbiased assessments and to bring to account those who are responsible for the illegal actions.
Mass protests led by pro-Russian activists are ongoing in eastern Ukraine's regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk. Ukraine saw Friday the bloodiest violence since the February overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, with dozens killed in clashes between local nationalists and pro-Russian activists across the country.
The political crisis erupted in Ukraine in late November 2013 after the government announced that it had halted the country’s association with the EU. Mass protests, called Euromaidan, swept across the country and led to violent clashes between armed radicals and law enforcers in January and February 2014.