Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander V Mantytskiy has slammed a section of Bangladeshi media for what he called “biased approach” in their coverage of the situation in Ukraine and Russia’s actions there.
He described it as “deliberate efforts” to damage Dhaka-Moscow relations.
“I consider the biased approach of certain Bangladeshi media towards the situation in Ukraine and Russia’s actions there a result of deliberate efforts by those forces that have always sought to undermine mutually beneficial cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, which started 50 years ago,” he said in an open letter to editors of print and electronic media, heads of radio and TV channels in Bangladesh today.
The ambassador referred to 1971 when Bangladeshis overthrew — with the active support from India and the then USSR — the rule of non-Bengali oppressors.
He said the Russian-speaking people of Donbas in East Ukraine have been struggling to obtain the same rights for eight years while suffering from “genocide unleashed by the Kyiv regime”.
The time is ripe for Russia to come to the rescue once again, for the same cause, to ensure the right to speak the mother tongue and to end language-based discrimination, said the Russian envoy.
“I hope that through my open letter, your readers will be able to get acquainted with an alternative point of view on the developments around Ukraine,” said the ambassador.
Against the backdrop of “anti-Russia campaign and blatant Russo-phobic hysteria” from western mainstream media, the ambassador said certain Bangladeshi newspapers and broadcasters “widely echoed and spread” those.
He said his letter to editors is an effort to explain to the Bangladeshi readers once again the goals and tasks behind the “special military operation” of Russia in Ukraine.
According to the Russian ambassador, the goals are: to protect Russian-speaking civilians in Ukraine subjected to “genocide by the Kiev regime” for eight years; to eliminate “neo-fascism”; to prevent the development of nuclear weapons in Ukraine; and to stop the deployment of NATO military bases in Ukraine.
Tasks, according to him, are: to demilitarise and to free Ukraine from Nazi ideology; to put an end to neo-fascism that has raised its head in Ukraine after being defeated in the Great Patriotic War; to eliminate military threats on the border of the Russian Federation; to disarm aggressive entities of Ukraine, posing threat to peaceful coexistence; and to identify and punish persons who have committed crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine and citizens of the Russian Federation by legal procedures in the courts of the Russian Federation.
“We do not plan to occupy Ukrainian territory. We are not at war with the Ukrainian people. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. We have explained many times that the situation in Ukraine has evolved in such a way that it has come to pose a direct threat to Russia’s security,” said Ambassador Mantytskiy.
