Russia's ambassador to Syria, Alexander Efimov, said Russia is working to disarm Ukraine and liberate it from Nazism, and is not carrying out attacks against civilian sites. 

The remarks came during a special meeting hosted by the Arab Writers Union on Thursday. 

Efimov argued that the neo-Nazis use civilians as human shields and use the same methods as terrorists in Syria, adding that Moscow is working to preserve the Ukrainian population.

Bashar al-Jaafari, Deputy Foreign Minister for Syria, said there is a "huge flow of information, but we lack a lot of political education. The West is lying to us, and we are living a Western political lie, and there is a problem of political education on what is taking place in Ukraine."

He added, "International files overlapped more than before, and Ukraine’s experience demonstrated the fragility of the European security system." 

The Syrian foreign minister stressed that Damascus needs to support the Russian position. 

"The European Union is not European, but rather a subordinate of the NATO, and Russia has discovered today real allies who stand with it. Today we are in one trench and Russia’s partners in this confrontation with the West," al-Jaafari added.

Read more: Syrian Presidential Advisor: Countries that supported wars have no right to denounce Russia

NATO expansion destabilized Europe

NATO's expansion eastward played a role in the Ukraine crisis, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday before Parliament.

"A view shared by many leading scholars on international relations [is] that the war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from among its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater instability in the region," he said.

Russia had launched a special military operation for several reasons, including NATO's eastward expansion. Other reasons were the Ukrainian shelling of Donbass and the killing of the people of the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic, in addition to Moscow wanting to "denazify" and demilitarize Ukraine.

Ramaphosa's words came in response to a lawmaker's request to condemn Russia's special military operation in Ukraine as a friend, or "it will see you as a useful idiot."