MOSCOW. March 28 (Interfax) - Russia condemns the attacks staged by the Yemeni Houthi movement Ansar Allah on civilian sites in Saudi Arabia and calls on the sides to stop confrontation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"Moscow resolutely condemns Ansar Allah's armed actions directed against civilian sites in Saudi Arabia. Such actions are fraught with a further escalation of violence in the Persian Gulf area and could entail the most serious consequences for the environmental situation in the region," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.
"The Houthis' attacks on targets in adjoining states, the attacks which are a direct result of the continuing degradation of the situation in the Republic of Yemen, undermine the peacekeeping efforts being undertaken by UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg," the ministry said.
"In this context, we call on all sides to the Yemeni conflict to demonstrate restraint and to stop their armed confrontation, as a result of which civilians keep dying and economic and social infrastructure is being destroyed. We confirm our fundamental stance in favor of overcoming all existing disagreements through an inclusive dialogue, heeding the interests of all political forces and religious groups of Yemen, and in favor of reaching a comprehensive solution to the intra-Yemeni conflict as soon as possible under the aegis of the UN," it said.
On March 20 and March 25, the Yemeni Houthi movement Ansar Allah delivered a series of strikes on civilian infrastructure facilities in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah, Jizan and Najran provinces, using missiles and drones, the ministry said. The latest such attack caused serious damage to the Saudi Aramco company's petroleum storage site in Jeddah, setting fire to several oil storage facilities.