Kiev, Western nations bending peace deal: Moscow
Russia says Kiev and its Western allies have twisted a peace deal to end the crisis in east Ukraine which is shortly to go into effect.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday that several official representatives of Ukraine and the Western countries, “the United States in particular, have essentially expressed solidarity with the opinion of radical nationalists in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament).”
Moscow added that they have also started “to distort the contents of the Minsk agreements.”
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko reached the ceasefire deal in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on February 11-12, after marathon talks.
The negotiating sides agreed on the withdrawal of heavy weapons from Ukraine’s front lines and a ceasefire to begin at 2200 GMT on February 14, midnight Kiev time on February 15.
The Russian Ministry, meanwhile, warned that the Ukrainian government and the West are “putting in doubt the implementation of the document's concrete measures.”
The statement, however, reiterated that the representatives of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk have a “responsible attitude towards their commitments.”
“We reaffirm that the principal message of the Minsk accords is that it is necessary to end the fighting, to withdraw heavy weapons and to start a real constitutional reform in Ukraine,” the statement said.
Russia also called on all the signatories of Thursday's agreement as well as the parties that backed the process, including Germany and France, to do everything in their power to make certain that the accord is respected.
Ukraine’s months-long crisis
The two mainly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence pro-Russia protests there in mid-April 2014.
Violence intensified in May last year 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.
Back in September 2014, representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk signed another ceasefire deal in the same city. However, the truce was violated on an almost daily basis by both the Ukrainian military and pro-Russia forces and thus failed to bear any practical result.
MR/HMV/SS
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