Valery Gerasimov General of the Army (left) and the Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu (right)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres over the phone about the reasons for Russia's special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry told reporters on Friday.

The ministry said, "Sergey Shoigu informed the UN Secretary-General about the reasons for the decision to conduct a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine. They were caused by the fact that the leadership of Ukraine had been refusing to comply with the Minsk agreements for eight years, encouraged the entry of nationalists and neo-Nazis into all power mechanisms, and most recently time has sharply intensified the shelling of the civilian population of Donbass."

The minister noted that there was no progress in the negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and instead of urging Kiev to stop the killing against the people of the southeast of their country, Washington and the West began pumping weapons and ammunition into Ukraine, preparing it to resolve the conflict by force.

"The support of Western countries inspired Kiev to such an extent that it announced claims to possess nuclear weapons. Hostile opposition to Russia became Ukraine's raison d'etre, and through the efforts of the West, it turned into a territory from which a serious threat to Russia's security comes," the ministry said.

During the phone conversation, Shoigu said that Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi battle units are using civilians as human shields, acting like brutal bandits.

"The Russian Defense Minister drew special attention of Mr. Guterres to the fact that nationalist and neo-Nazi formations, which also include foreign mercenaries, are hiding behind civilians, using them as a 'human shield.' There is factual evidence of how they set up heavy military equipment (tanks, MLRS, artillery and mortars) in residential areas of cities, acting like brutal bandits, ignoring the threats posed by this to civilians," the ministry added.