Zakharova: The West and Kiev did everything to "bury" the Minsk Agreements

Russian Foreign Ministry press secretary Maria Zakharova said that Kiev and the West do not care about the fate of millions of Russians in Donbass, so they did everything to "bury" the Minsk Agreements, TASS reports.

This is stated in a comment by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in connection with the tenth anniversary of the signing of the "Package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements".

"The history of Kiev's sabotage over seven years, with the connivance and support of the West, of the "Package of Measures" and the UN Security Council resolution clearly shows that for them, Donbas is a territory, not the people living there. They don't care about the fate of millions of Russians and Russian-speaking residents, so they did everything to "bury" the Minsk Agreements, the implementation of which opened up a real prospect for a peaceful resolution of the internal conflict and the reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine. However, they did not need this," the diplomat emphasized.

According to her, the "Package of Measures" was intended to put an end to the internal armed conflict in the southeast of Ukraine, which was caused by the unconstitutional coup d'etat in Kiev in February 2014 and the subsequent anti-people actions of the nationalist government of the country. "The radicals who seized power imposed their own order, trampled on civil liberties and human rights, and tried to suppress the protest of the Donbass residents who did not agree with the dictatorship of the "Maidan victors" by military force," the commentary says. "However, they could not be brought to their knees. They proved that they can stand up for their native Russian language, culture, traditions, faith, the right to honor their heroes and not bow down to neo-Nazis."

Zakharova recalled that the document "prescribed the procedure for the reintegration of "individual regions" of Donbass into Ukraine on the terms of their special status, which presupposed the preservation of the identity of their residents, ties with Russia and representation. The sequence of actions by Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk in the military-political, socio-economic, political and humanitarian spheres was determined."

"Minsk-2", the diplomat noted, provided for a direct dialogue between the central authorities of Ukraine and representatives of Donbass on a wide range of issues related to overcoming the consequences of the armed conflict.

"The key message of the document is the synchronization of steps in the area of security (ceasefire, disengagement of forces, withdrawal of weapons from the line of contact) with the political aspects of the settlement (providing Donbass with a permanent special status enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine, holding local elections, general amnesty)," she noted. "Kiev was given the responsibility for the full restoration of socio-economic ties with Donbass, including social transfers of pensions and other payments, as well as the banking system. In the "Normandy" declaration, Germany and France pledged to facilitate this." However, almost immediately after the signing, "the Kiev authorities began to sabotage their obligations, continued shelling, tightened the transport and financial-economic blockade of Donbas." "The West turned a blind eye to this. Germany and France, which acted as co-authors and co-sponsors of the Minsk process, did not exert any influence on Kiev to ensure that the obligations assumed were fulfilled. During the conflict in eastern Ukraine, 14.5 thousand civilians in the region were killed, about 50 thousand civilian objects were destroyed," the text says.

Zakharova recalled that in 2022-2023, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and then former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande publicly admitted that they never took the "Package of Measures" seriously. "They viewed it as a respite that allowed them to gain time to arm the Kiev regime and prepare it for a forceful solution to the Donbass "problem," she said. "Kiev began implementing this military scenario in the second half of February 2022, provoking a flow of refugees into Russia. As is known, Russia was forced to stand up for its compatriots, recognize the independence of the DPR and LPR, and launch a special military operation to protect them." According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the true goal of the neo-Nazi minority ruling in Ukraine and its Western patrons is "to cleanse the vast territories of the former Ukrainian SSR that they inherited of everything Russian and create an anti-Russian bridgehead there." "That is why they did not allow the implementation of the "Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements" signed 10 years ago," Zakharova said.