Russian Foreign Ministry: Ukraine blocks UN Statement on Churkin following order

Ukraine's permanent representative would not have block the adoption by the UN Security Council of a statement dedicated to late Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin without an order, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"I know how the UNSC works. I have almost no doubt that [Ukraine's] permanent representative would not have done this on his own. This means that he was ordered to do it," Lavrov elaborated.

"This goes against Christian values. It's beyond good and evil. Thanks to the current Ukrainian authorities, however, we are accustomed to the fact that someone in their country treats Russians, and anyone who refuses to dance to the pipe of neo-Nazis, precisely like that," Sputnik cited Lavrov as saying.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook earlier today that this decision is "the essence" of the current Ukrainian authorities.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also commented that Ukraine's behavior is "not at all as important as the loss that Russia's diplomacy had suffered."

"When we have just suffered such loss, this behavior on the part of our Ukrainian counterparts… May God judge them," Peskov told reporters when asked to comment on Ukraine’s step. "It seems, there is no more to say. After the Russian diplomacy has suffered such a loss, it is not that important," TASS cited him as saying.

Vitaly Churkin who has served as Russia's Permanent Representative to UN since April, 2006, died in New York on Monday. The diplomat would have turned 65 on February 21.