Russia began the war in Donbass and annexed Crimea to protect Russians and Russian-speaking. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of RF Sergei Lavrov claimed about it at the second international scientific and expert forum in Moscow on June 30, 2017.

‘We defend what we agreed upon after the victory in 1945. If we didn’t protect our people, so we’d lose our civilization. Our ancestors have been building it for centuries, but we could lose it in every moment. That’s why we defend Crimea and war in Syria. And our opponents from the West this time are agreeing with terrorists to liquidate Asad. These are the questions of behaviour and political views. Russia has weight in world politics, therefore will defend its interests’, Lavrov said.

According to Lavrov’s opinion Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine were subjected to harassment. Kyiv power ostensibly was going to expel Russians from the Crimea and introduced discrimination of the Russian language. In connection with it Russia annexed the peninsula and unleashed a war on the East of Ukraine.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergei Lavrov questioned the results of the investigation of  Bellingcat group. According to them, ‘Buk’, from which the Malaysian Boeing was shot down in the sky over Ukraine, belonged to the Russian army.