Lavrov Lays Out EU, Kiev Sabotage of Minsk Accords

During an extensive press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a somewhat detailed briefing on the ongoing sabotage of the Minsk Accords, in the course of answering questions.

First, he noted that

(transcript from Russian Foreign Ministry).

Later, he described how the Kiev authorities are also denying that military objectives are substantially being met, and were sabotaging the Minsk agreement, which all the Western powers claim they want to see fully implemented.

First, Kiev said they had no obligations to grant “an amnesty to the participants in the events in southeastern Ukraine, nor had they assumed any political or legal obligations to take Donetsk and Lugansk’s positions into consideration in carrying out constitutional reform.”

Second, he noted that the Rada had issued a statement saying it would not cooperate with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics to hold local elections—an item in the agreement.

Third, Kiev has refused to honor the agreement to establish working subgroups within the Contact Group on the constitutional process, humanitarian and economic issues, the holding of elections, and so on.

To Lavrov’s listing one might add the specific statement of Vladislav Deinego, the Lugansk republic representative on the Contact Group, who both complained of ongoing shelling by Kiev, and also noted that the Rada had only 4 days left to meet the deadline set in the Minsk accords for adopting a decree on granting special status to Donbas.

Lavrov concluded his discussion as follows: