Russia will not tolerate constant security threat from Ukraine

Moscow cannot allow the Kiev regime to pose a constant threat to Russia's security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Rossiya-1’s 60 Minute show on Tuesday.

"We cannot [allow] Ukraine to constitute a constant security threat to the Russian Federation, I’m referring to its plans to join NATO and the stationing of weapons on Ukrainian territory, which would pose such a threat," the Russian top diplomat pointed out.

According to him, Ukraine should not be "a terrorist state that terrorizes its own citizens." "It must not be a state where everything is allowed, and all this tolerance crosses all boundaries and leads to the assassination of journalists, political figures and Verkhovna Rada (parliament) members, as well as to many other things," Lavrov emphasized.

"We cannot allow a situation where Ukrainian citizens who consider themselves Russians or Russian speakers are deprived of their rights," Lavrov stated, adding that it wasn’t just about the residents of Donbass but also about Ukrainian civilians who were harassed by nationalists.