Iran Monitoring Ukraine Crisis with Concern

“Unfortunately provocative moves by NATO spearheaded by the US have led to a situation which has pushed the Eurasian region on the cusp of a big crisis,” Khatibzadeh said in a statement on Thursday.

Iran invites the two sides to stop the hostilities and establish a ceasefire for immediate talks in order to resolve the crisis through political means, he added.

Khatibzadeh also urged Russia and Ukraine to observe international law and international humanitarian laws during the conflict, the Foreign Ministry’s website reported.

The spokesman also referred to the situation of Iranians living in Ukraine and said, "The most important current mission of Iran’s Foreign Ministry is to fully and urgently address the situation of Iranians living in Ukraine, which is underway according to predictions made using all capacities."

He finally noted that the embassy of Iran in Ukraine is fully active and serves students and Iranians 24 hours a day, in accordance with the previous instructions.

The statement came amid Russia's military operation in the eastern parts of Ukraine, which started after Putin said he had ordered the Russian Federation's military to carry out a “special military operation” in the Donbass region. Putin’s order came after the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass region asked the Kremlin for military assistance in response to what they called “Ukrainian aggression.”

In 2014, Ukraine’s two regions of Donetsk and Lugansk were turned into self-proclaimed republics by ethnic Russians, leading to a bloody conflict between the government forces and the armed separatists.

On Monday, Putin signed a decree recognizing the breakaway Lugansk and Donetsk regions as independent republics. The recognition followed an address in which he referred to eastern Ukraine as “ancient Russian lands” being “managed by foreign powers.”