WATCH: Stephanopoulos Confronts Russia’s Lavrov on Civilian Deaths in Ukraine and Russia’s ‘Lies’ About Them

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos confronted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the civilians killed in the course of the invasion of Ukraine.

During a press roundtable for Russian television, parts of which were aired on Good Morning America Thursday, Stephanopoulos said to Lavrov: “The world is seeing civilians being killed in Ukraine by Russian bombs. The world is hearing the lies Russia is telling about those attacks, the world is uniting to condemn those attacks and those lies.”

“How can you defend them?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“I cannot comment [on] conjectures and there is a great deal of these now,” Lavrov replied.

Accurate estimates of death tolls are hard to come by in active war zones, but horrific attacks on civilians have been documented in reports and footage since Russia began its ground invasion and bombing campaign. The U.N. estimates that 227 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded, while the Ukrainian government puts that number at 2,000. The U.N. said Wednesday that 1 million refugees had fled Ukraine since the start of the war.

Lavrov went on to accuse the United States of seeking to “close down” Russian media outlets, which he said have shown “how the Ukrainian army and the neo-Nazi battalions behave towards the peaceful civilians.”

The reference to neo-Nazis is a reiteration of the Kremlin’s laughable claim that their invasion of Ukraine is an effort to “de-Nazify” the country, which is currently led by a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Stephanopoulos followed up by questioning the Russian foreign minister on his claim that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis.

“I think that the Nazis, the neo-Nazis manipulate him,” Lavrov claimed. “Otherwise it is hard to account for how President Zelensky can preside over society where neo-Nazism is rife.”

Watch above, via ABC News.