Russian envoy summoned to foreign ministry after 10 ethnic Greeks killed in Russian bombings

Russian ambassador to Athens Andrey Maslov has been summoned to the Greek foreign ministry tomorrow after the killing of 10 ethnic Greeks and the injury of six more in Russian bombings in Eastern Ukraine.

Six were killed in the village of Santana and four others in the village of Bugas.

Earlier today, after the first two ethnic Greek civilians of the large Greek minority, numbering 91,000 according to a 2001 Ukrainian census, were killed, the Greek foreign ministry issued a strong condemnation of the attacks.

"Greece is appalled by and unequivocally condemns the bombing of civilians by a Russian aircraft on the outskirts of the village of Sartana earlier today, which resulted in the death of two Diaspora Greeks and the injury of six others, including a child. Upon instructions from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, the [ministry] Secretary General Themistoklis Demiris made a strong protest demarche by telephone to the Russian Ambassador in Athens and summoned him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tomorrow. It is recalled that, during their recent meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had emphatically raised with his Russian counterpart the issue of the need to protect Diaspora Greeks," the statement read.

Lavrov's reference to TRNC
The protection of ethnic Greek civilians in Ukraine is not the only thorn in Greece-Russia relations.

With Ankara having resisted Kyiv's pleas to close the Dardanelles to Russian ships and Greece having taken a hard line on sanctions in concert with its NATO and EU allies, Lavrov in the last week has twice referred to Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus by the name of the breakaway state established there by Ankara, "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus."

The...