Pro-Russia militants fire at Ukrainian border guards defending the Federal Border Headquarters in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, on June 2, 2014. (Xinhua/AFP)
Moscow, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Russian authorities expected the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to respond quickly to the latest attack on the building of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, Russia's Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich said Saturday.
Earlier in the day, some 30 Ukrainian radicals, demanding the termination of the center's operation in Ukraine, broke into the building where the center is located and caused significant damage in there, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"In connection with this provocation and threats, we appealed to the the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) with a demand to respond quickly to the outrageous manifestation of aggressive nationalism and issue an urgent report on what happened so that all OSCE members can learn about this barbarity," Lukashevich said in a commentary published on the ministry's website.
Moscow also demanded from the Ukrainian leadership an official statement condemning the actions by the radical activists and the "frenzied nationalism," the document said.
Meanwhile, Russia will "take all necessary measures" via diplomatic means following the attack, Eleonora Mitrofanova, head of the Russian foreign cooperation agency Rossotrudnichestvo to which the Russian Center for Science and Culture is affiliated, was cited by Sputnik news agency as saying.
"Measures will be taken soon, including complaints to international organizations," a source at the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax news agency.
Relations between Moscow and Kiev have worsened since 2014 when Crimea joined Russia following a local referendum, while Ukraine said the peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia. Kiev also accuses Moscow of inciting conflict in its eastern Donbas region, which the latter has repeatedly denied.
