The United States is ready to support the Minsk and Normandy formats on Ukraine, but much depends on Moscow, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in an interview with Spiegel
According to him, in 2015 and 2016, the U.S. agreed that the Normandy format was central to advancing the Minsk peace process. However, the secretary of state claims that Russia has largely failed to implement the results of the process. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine and is not a subject of the Minsk settlement agreements.
“President Biden discussed this with President Putin, as well as with Chancellor Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. In doing so, we presented the following viewpoint: if Russia is seriously interested in filling Minsk with life, and we can help with that, then we are 100% ready for that”, – the Secretary of State said.
“I hope that Russia is really serious about the Minsk process. In that case, the Normandy format can continue to play a central role and we are ready to engage and facilitate it. But everything depends on Moscow”, – the secretary of state said.
Relations between Russia and Western countries have deteriorated over the situation in Ukraine and around Crimea, which reunited with Russia following a referendum on the peninsula. The West accused Russia of meddling and imposed sanctions against it, while Moscow has retaliated by embracing import substitution and has repeatedly stated that it is counterproductive to speak to it in the language of sanctions.
The so-called “Normandy format” of talks on Ukraine has existed since June 2014. Then, during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, the leaders of Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France first discussed the settlement of the conflict in Donbas. The previous summit was held in Paris on 9 December 2019. Recently, the parties at different levels have been discussing the prospects for interaction in this format.