Reuters Moscow said Thursday certain Internet media distorted the true meaning of an interview Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov gave the news agency recently.
"The Russian government needs to work out a strategy, it needs to attack," the leader of the Russian North Caucasus republic said in the interview with Reuters posted December 21.
"...Georgia, South Ossetia, Ukraine, all this will go on and on. It's Russia's private affliction. Why should we always suffer if we can eradicate this for good? We are a great power, we have everything - an army, technology. We need to attack."
But some media said Kadyrov called to "attack Ukraine and Georgia." Ukraine's Foreign Ministry reacted to this saying it "perceived with indignation and dismay the openly unfriendly statements by the head of a Russian Federation member."
Michael Stott, the head of Reuters' bureau in Russia and the CIS, said the agency was extremely surprised and disappointed by the comments on the interview also posted by The Daily Telegraph, adding that some media wrongly interpreted Kadyrov's statements.
Stott requested the media that carried the wrongly interpreted statements to correct their reports.
Journalists asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to comment on Kadyrov's words, but Lavrov said he has not read the interview.
"I can only say that the concept of Russia's foreign policy does not envision making attacks on other states," he said. "As regards the specific states you've mentioned, we do not see any threat on the part of Ukraine."
Chechnya, which saw two separatist wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has been swept by a fresh wave of violence recently. Shootouts and attacks on troops, police and other officials have been reported daily. The neighboring, mainly Muslim, regions of Russia have also been plagued by instability.
Kadyrov, 33, a former separatist who fought against Russia in the First Chechen War, has pledged to end militancy in Chechnya and occasionally leads police operations. His father, the previous leader of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, was assassinated in May 2004.
MOSCOW/GROZNY, December 24 (RIA Novosti)
