Donetsk People’s Republic Foreign Ministry: Ukraine has failed on all items of Minsk agreements

05.09.2019, Donetsk.

Over the five years of the Donbass conflict, the Ukrainian side has fulfilled none of the items of the Minsk agreements, the Foreign Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Natalya Nikonorova said on September 5 in an interview to RIA Novosti.

According to Nikonorova, the Ukrainian side “has totally neglected” the fulfillment of its “peacekeeping” responsibilities in Donbass. This is why, she believes, the Minsk agreements recently had to be supplemented with another document, a Package of Measures for their implementation.

The DPR official noted that Ukraine has systematically ignored the provisions of the Minsk agreements over the entire five years since the conflict began. In particular, the Ukrainian military continues the shelling of civilians in the DPR and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR); the official Kiev has not started pension payments to Donbass residents, and it even has not bothered to pay the salaries to the railroad personnel and to that of the Water of Donbass company.

Furthermore, Ukraine not only refuses to fulfill, but it also deliberately blocks any discussion “on the political items of the Package of Measures,” Nikonorova believes. In particular, in her opinion, the official Kiev undermines its own Law No. 1680-VII on the special status of Donbass adopted by the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) on September 16, 2014.

September 5, 2019, is the fifth anniversary of the enactment of the trilateral Minsk Protocol signed by the representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The key measures of the document include a ceasefire on the territories of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, including the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and early local elections in these territories.

A second, extended and supplemented Minsk agreement was approved on February 11-12, 2015, in the Normandy Four format, which included Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia. The working title of the document is the Package of Measures (for the implementation of the Minsk agreements).

On July 21, 2019, the Contact Group on the implementation of the Minsk agreements reached an agreement on “a comprehensive, sustainable, and indefinite ceasefire” in the Donetsk region. Nevertheless, only 13 hours later the Ukrainian side violated it, shelling the villages of Lebedinskoye and Novaya Tavria.

Editorial comment

The Ukrainian side’s systematic and ruthless violation of all the items of the Minsk agreements has long become a norm for anyone who believes their eyes and ears. After five years it has become increasingly obvious that the official Kiev, whose insolence is fueled by the West’s connivance and its own impunity, never planned to fulfill them.

Nevertheless, the Minsk agreements are neither a useless document nor evidence that Donbass is being “ceded,” as some patriotic poseurs often say. At least, the agreements ended the mayhem of violence that took place from May to August 2014, and they switched the conflict into a continuing, but low-intensity phase. In these conditions, establishing a full statehood for the DPR and the LPR is still an extremely difficult, but feasible task.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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