Chances for timely implementation of the Minsk Agreements are shrinking with the current policy of the European Union (EU) and NATO, chairman of Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said in an interview published in the Izvestiya newspaper on Monday.
“With the current policy of the West – NATO countries, European Union countries – chances for timely implementation of the Minsk Agreements are not growing but, unfortunately, shrinking instead,” Kosachev said.
The implementation of the Minsk accords is possible only “if the West tells Kiev that non-implementation of the Minsk Agreements on time will lead to consequences of sanctions for Ukraine, if the existing modality of West’s actions is broken when every non-implementation of the Minsk Agreements is blamed only on Russia,” he added. “This is not happening so far. Kiev is free to act, to openly sabotage the Minsk Agreements,” the lawmaker stressed.
“The Ukrainian leadership is, unfortunately, not interested in implementing the Minsk Agreements,” he added. Both Russia and EU are interested in the implementation of the Minsk accords while Ukraine “has its advantages and disadvantages in in the issue of fulfilling” them, he concluded.
The Minsk Agreements were signed on 12 February 2015, after negotiations in the so-called “Normandy format” in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. The package of measures envisages ceasefire, weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbass, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.