Russia will continue insisting on settlement of the Ukrainian conflict by full and persistent implementation of the Complex of Measures to implement the Minsk agreements, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Monday.
“We shall continue working on the Ukrainian issue, for settlement of which there is no other alternative than full and persistent implementation of the Complex of Measures, which was signed in Minsk in February 2015,” he said.
“Our Western colleagues from Europe and the United States, as we know this from discussions, are well aware of the current Ukrainian leadership’s tactics towards the Minsk agreements,” Lavrov said. “They [Western colleagues] see very well that neighbors in Ukraine are still trying to spark a military phase of this standoff and thus distract attention from their steps to sabotage the Package of Measures.”
“We respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine within the borders that emerged after the referendum in Crimea and Crimea’s reunification with Russia,” he said.
The basis of peace settlement of the conflict in Donbass is the Complex of Measures to fulfil the Minsk Agreements, which the Contact Group adopted on February 12, 2015 following a meeting of the Normandy Four leaders (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine). The document contains provisions for ceasefire, weapons withdrawal, amnesty, resuming of economic relations, as well as a deep constitutional reform in Ukraine, which should result in de-centralization of power and in granting of a permanent special status to certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
However, this plan remains unfulfilled. The Ukrainian side has refused absolutely to fulfil the political provisions of the agreement, explaining the decision by unsettled security issues.