UN must condemn use of UN-marked military helicopters in Ukraine - Lukashevich
MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax) - Moscow hopes senior officials in the United Nations will publicly condemn the use by the Ukrainian authorities of helicopters bearing the UN symbols, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said.
"We hope that the UN leaders will officially express a most exacting assessment and condemnation of such actions by the Kyiv authorities who bear full responsibility for the unsanctioned use of the UN flag," he said at a briefing in Moscow on Thursday.
Russia has raised this issue with the UN Secretariat "in a tough form and demanded an investigation," the diplomat said. "We were reassured that the Organization's representatives are in close contact with the authorities in Kyiv and promised we shall be additionally informed in relation to this incident," Lukashevich said.
"The use of aircraft with the UN symbols without a [Security Council] sanction is unacceptable and raises most serious concerns," he said.
"This is not just a violation of the relations between the UN and a nation which supplies its troops for the UN peacekeeping forces and peacekeeping operations, but also causes irreparable damage to the prestige, reputation and image of the global organization," Lukashevich said.