The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has criticized that the Ukrainian authorities have left the bodies of their dead soldiers uncollected in Konstantinovka, after allegedly rejecting a Russian offer to repatriate them. This strategic Ukrainian town has recently come under the control of Russian forces, a fact that Kyiv denies.
Along these lines, Lavrov has pointed out that "the best answer" regarding the current situation in this Donbas city is that Kyiv has rejected the proposal to recover the remains of its soldiers. "Ukraine refused, which underlines once again that it does not need Ukrainians, neither alive nor dead," he declared, according to the TASS agency.
"Probably, these losses will be considered combat disappearances," the head of Russian diplomacy added this Tuesday during his visit to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where he held a meeting with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmud Ali Yusuf.
Last weekend, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had proposed a "humanitarian action" to Ukraine to return the bodies of soldiers fallen in recent weeks of fighting for control of Konstantinovka, in the Donetsk region, a proposal that, according to Moscow, was rejected by Kyiv.