Minsk truce deal only way to end Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko
The Ukrainian president says abiding by the Minsk ceasefire agreement with pro-Russians is the only way to end the deadly clashes in eastern Ukraine.
“We will not allow undermining the Minsk accords. Everything must be based solely on them. And now we must guarantee their strict and full-scale implementation,” said Petro Poroshenko at an emergency session of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council in the capital, Kiev, on Sunday.
The emergency meeting was held a day after a rocket hit the residential areas of the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, killing at least 30 civilians and wounding 100 others.
Kiev blames the pro-Russian forces for the deadly attack.
On Friday, the leader of Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, said pro-Russians would continue to fight for more territory in eastern Ukraine and abandon peace negotiations with the Ukrainian government.
Back in September 2014, the representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk inked a ceasefire deal in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. The truce has been almost daily violated by both the Ukrainian military and pro-Russia forces in eastern Ukraine.
Donetsk and Lugansk, in eastern Ukraine and with mainly Russian-speaking populations, have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since Kiev’s military operation started in April 2014 in a bid to crush the protests.
Violence intensified in May 2014 after the two flashpoint regions held local referendums in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine and joining the Russian Federation.
The fighting has left more than 5,000 people killed and over 1.5 million displaced, the United Nations says.
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