Kiev - Washington's UN envoy accused Russia on Thursday of spinning "outright lies" on Ukraine designed to hide the Kremlin's direct involvement in a war it launched to thwart Kiev's pro-Western drive.
Samantha Power's address to a crowd of hundreds in Kiev delivered one of Washington's toughest messages to Moscow since the warring sides grudgingly signed off on a loosely defined truce in February that threatened to collapse last week.
Her emotional 70-minute speech also came a year into a presidency Petro Poroshenko has used to try to wipe out decades of crippling corruption and anaemic economic growth that left Ukraine reliant on Russian help.
Power said Russia launched the war in Ukraine's vital eastern industrial heartland 14 months ago in order to drain the new government's remaining financial resources and undermine its public support.
She charged that the Kremlin then tried to disguise its agenda through a torrent of media propaganda and disingenuous speeches at global venues such as the United Nations Security Council -- messages that helped President Vladimir Putin's domestic support touch record highs.
"The focus on Ukraine in the Security Council is important because it gives me the chance -- on behalf of the United States -- to lay out the mounting evidence of Russia's aggression, its obfuscation, and its outright lies," said Power.
Putin has resolutely denied sending special forces into Ukraine's battle-scarred Donetsk and Lugansk provinces -- a predominantly Russian-speaking region with ancient cultural links to Moscow.
AFP
