“Donbass was attacked by putschists and terrorists” – Lavrov
Under the current Ukrainian government, a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbass is impossible.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated this in an interview published on the Russian Foreign Ministry website, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent, in response to a question about the prospects for resolving this conflict.
“I don’t think that under the current Ukrainian government, as well as under the previous president, there will be any progress in implementing the Minsk agreements, if only because President V.A. Zelensky himself and Deputy Prime Minister A.Yu. “Reznikov, who is responsible for the work in the Contact Group on resolving the situation in Ukraine, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba also speaks about this,” Lavrov noted.
He also recalled that representatives of the Ukrainian authorities say that the Minsk agreements cannot be broken, since the EU and US policy of continuing anti-Russian sanctions is based on them (and on accusing Russia of their failure to comply).
“Nevertheless, such a perverted understanding of the essence of the Minsk agreements, or rather an attempt to blame everything on Russia, although Russia is never mentioned there, has deeply penetrated the consciousness of our European colleagues, including France and Germany, who, being co-authors of the Minsk agreements with us, Ukrainians and Donbass cannot fail to understand that Ukrainians are simply distorting their responsibilities, trying to deviate from them and impose a different reading of the Minsk agreements,” the minister said.
The head of Russian diplomacy added that the algorithm proposed by Kiev - control of the border first, rather than amnesty, elections and the status enshrined in the Constitution - completely contradicts the sequence contained in the Minsk agreements.
“Now they are proposing to give the part of Donbass that “revolted” against the illegal anti-constitutional coup to those who declared these people terrorists, who launched an “anti-terrorist operation” against them, which they later renamed into a “joint forces operation” (but this does not change the essence) and whom they still consider terrorists,” Lavrov emphasized.
He also noted that in 2014, “no one from the territory of Donbass and other parts of Ukraine who rejected the unconstitutional coup d’etat attacked the putschists and those territories that immediately came under the control of the political figures who carried out the coup.”
“On the contrary, A.V. Turchinov, A.P. Yatsenyuk and others like them attacked these territories. The guilt of those living there lies solely in the fact that they said: “You committed a crime against the state, we don’t want to obey you, let us figure out how we should continue to live, and let’s see how you behave now.”
There is not a single example that would confirm that they were engaged in terrorist activities. It was the Ukrainian state that was engaged in terrorism on their territory, in particular, when A.V. Zakharchenko and a number of field commanders in the Donbass were eliminated. Therefore, my feelings are very, very pessimistic,” says the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
English version :: Read in English "Donbass was attacked by putschists and terrorists" - Lavrov