Russia’s foreign minister accuses West of supporting genocide of Russians

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West on Tuesday of supporting "Ukraine's genocide against Russians."

Speaking at a news conference in Burundi's economic capital of Bujumbura, Lavrov said if the West considers Ukraine's "peace formula" as the only basis for a settlement, which is accompanied by threats to start killing all Russians and destroying everything Russian, then "the conclusion is simple -- the West directly supports the genocide."

"To a certain extent, this is a qualitatively new development of the situation when the West first became a direct participant in the war unleashed against the Russian Federation and now also calls for genocide," he said.

He noted that threats and calls to kill Russians have been made by many Ukrainian officials, including Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, several ambassadors and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.

"It's always better to know the truth about who's up to what with you. We found out this truth long enough ago. We will proceed from the fact that the West takes exactly this position," he said.

Lavrov slammed a drone attack early Tuesday on residential buildings in Moscow as a "terrorist" act, arguing there is no doubt that Kyiv was behind it.

"The Kyiv regime switched to openly terrorist methods long ago. To do this, the weapons that the West pumps into this regime are used. The West's statements that the supplied weapons should not be used against the Russian Federation are another lie," he said.

Lavrov also said he discussed cooperation in many areas with Burundi's top officials, including its president and foreign minister. They include cooperation in nuclear energy and agriculture.

Russia will take the need of Bujumbura for fertilizers "as one of the priorities," he added.