Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says he thinks the United States proposes deploying a "UN administration" to the occupied areas in Donbas, the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry told UNIAN.

Speaking after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council Meeting in Vienna on December 7, Lavrov stressed that the United States and Russia had "even fewer matching approaches" on Ukraine than on the settlement in Syria. "What we've heard from U.S. Representative Kurt Volker is a completely different approach. It suggests first of all the de-facto introduction of a UN administration there to manage everything what will happen in the self-proclaimed 'DPR' and 'LPR' without focusing on such issues as Donbas' special status, amnesty, preparations for elections through direct dialogue between Kyiv, Donetsk and Luhansk," Lavrov said.

Commenting his Russian counterpart's statement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said that the occupation administration was already in Donbas. "FM Lavrov calls the initiative to deploy the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas 'an intention to create an occupation administration' there. I believe that the occupation administration is already there. That's #Russian occupation administration," Klimkin tweeted on December 7. Klimkin announced on November 11 that Ukraine, the United States, and Germany had practically prepared a draft UN resolution on deploying peacekeepers to Donbas.

UNIAN