Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We believe that the coalition’s intervention in the civil war [in Libya] has not, essentially, been sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution.”
Following the decision by the British government not to invite Russia to an international conference in London on Libya – whose participants, including the United States and other Western powers, reaffirmed support for Nato’s military action in the North African country – Russian intransigence increased when the Kremlin’s top diplomat said that the conference should “start a probe into alleged civilian casualties caused by Nato bombings in Libya”.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has argued that military intervention by the US in the internal affairs of sovereign countries has now become a “stable trend” in Washington’s foreign policy – and is carried out “under the pretext of protecting civilians.”
