Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the cancellation of Ukraine’s non-bloc status is counterproductive.
He said this to journalists on Tuesday in Moscow, which hosts a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an Ukrinform correspondent in Russia reported.
“It is a counterproductive [move]. It only escalates the confrontation and creates an illusion that a deep domestic crisis in Ukraine can be settled by the adoption of such laws,” he said.
Instead of canceling the non-bloc status, Lavrov advised Kyiv to negotiate with separatists.
“A much more productive and reasonable way would be to start a dialogue with that part of their own people, which was fully ignored during the state coup,” Lavrov said.