MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Moscow has promised to react to "numerous requests for protecting civilians" in Ukraine.
"Russia is receiving numerous requests for protecting civilians. These requests will be given consideration," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
"Militants, including ones from Right Sector, continue to commit outrages in Ukraine," it said.
"In Kharkiv on March 14, they staged a provocation against peaceful demonstrators who had come to express their attitude to the so-called new authorities. As a result of gunfire opened by the militants, two persons were killed and some were wounded," the statement said.
"Alarming information is coming in that a convoy carrying armed mercenaries from Right Sector has set off from Kharkiv to Donetsk and Luhansk. The leaders of Right Sector have declared the opening of an 'eastern front,' while Russian military uniforms are urgently being sewn at one of the sewing factories," the ministry said.
"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew the attention of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during their meeting in London on March 14 this year to the danger of the decisions of the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] to legitimize Right Sector and other radicals by turning them into constitutional structures of the National Guard type. Sergei Lavrov insisted that Washington use its influence with Kyiv to cut short the sway of the ultranationalists," the ministry said.