The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has summoned Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Mykhailo Yezhel for consultations due to the position of the Belarusian authorities on Crimea.

"In connection with a statement made by President Alexander Lukashenko on March 23 the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has summoned Ukraine's ambassador to Belarus for consultations and sent a respective note to the Belarusian side stating that such remarks by the Belarusian president are contrary to the generally recognized rules of international law and the position of most countries that condemned Russia's actions to annex Crimea," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis said at a briefing on Monday.

As reported, Lukashenko made a number of statements on Ukraine at a briefing in Minsk on Sunday. In particular, he said that "today Crimea is part of the Russian territory," but no one is demanding that Belarus recognize it or support its inclusion in Russia. He also said that the Ukrainian authorities had made a lot of mistakes that resulted in the loss of Crimea. At the same time, Lukashenko said he was confident that Ukraine should remain an undivided state and warned of the danger of its collapse into individual subjects of a federation.