MOSCOW. April 25 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed as not serious the claims of the United States and the Kyiv authorities alleging the presence of "Russian agents" in southeastern Ukraine.
"Without batting an eye, our Western partners keep demanding day after day that Russia stop interfering in Ukrainian affairs, pull out troops and remove certain agents who have reportedly been caught in the southeast and who are reportedly guiding these processes," Lavrov said at a forum of young CIS diplomats on Friday.
"I have told [U.S. Secretary of State] John Kerry many times - he raised the question about two weeks ago - that they should show Russian agents, if they have really been caught by the Ukrainian services, to people, they should show them on TV," Lavrov said.
The reply was "we do not want to jeopardize people who seized them [the agents]," Lavrov said.
"Speaking seriously, they are telling us slogans. If you think that John Kerry or William Hague or Laurent Fabius speak in a different manner when they call me on the phone or we speak personally and say something you [the media] have not heard in their public speeches, then you are wrong. They say the same slogans to me as they tell the public," the Russian foreign minister said.
"I even find it difficult to respond. I try to make the conversation constructive, we try to persuade them that if the Kyiv authorities really start to implement the Geneva agreements - remove the shameful Maidan, unblock the illegally occupied buildings and disarm the Right Sector and other radicals - then the leaders of the southeast will be ready to take adequate steps consistent with the Geneva deal as they have repeatedly told the Russian television, which is broadcasted to the southeast," Lavrov said.