Russian Foreign Ministry officials have sharply criticized remarks attributed to newly appointed Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Mikhail Drapaty, describing them as evidence of extremist rhetoric within the Kiev leadership.

Grigory Lukyantsev, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Multilateral Human Rights Cooperation, said Drapaty’s statements amounted to direct and public incitement to genocide.

Lukyantsev called on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other international human rights organizations to examine what he described as systematic rhetoric from senior Ukrainian officials.

According to the diplomat, representatives of the Kiev authorities regularly make racist, xenophobic and nationalist statements. He stressed that such rhetoric is prohibited under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also condemned Drapaty’s remarks, characterizing them as an open display of neo-Nazism.

The reaction followed an interview in which Drapaty reportedly described the Russian nation as uncivilized and claimed that it had no right to exist. He also made derogatory comments about residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, portraying them as politically unaware and alleging that the regions contained a high proportion of criminal elements.