Russia and Ukraine accuse each other at the UN of breaching the Minsk agreements

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin accused Ukraine this Thursday at the UN Security Council of failing to comply with the 2015 Minsk agreements, the same accusation made by the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN.

“Don’t be fooled” by these “superfluous speculations,” Vershinin said of statements by top officials of Western powers warning Russia against carrying out an invasion of Ukraine.

Most of his speech was devoted to talking about the Minsk agreements, aimed at pacifying the conflict in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists, and in which, according to the deputy minister, Russia does not participate.

“There is no other solution than to comply with the document” of these agreements, he stressed, lamenting that the Ukrainian authorities have not even opened a dialogue with the separatists as the agreement provided.

In a very measured tone, the Russian official spoke of “atrocities” perpetrated in eastern Ukraine but without using the terms of war crimes or genocide as recently denounced by Moscow regarding incidents in the region.

For his part, at the end of the Security Council session, devoted to analyzing compliance with the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian representative to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, accused Russia of failing to comply with the agreements.

“Russia has trampled on the agreements directly after signing them,” he said, holding the documents in his hand.

“The recognition by Russia of the independence of Donbas”, the region of eastern Ukraine, as recommended by a project of the Russian Parliament “would mean its withdrawal from the Minsk agreements,” Kyslytsya warned. The official regretted that Moscow continues to refuse to meet with the Ukrainian president to lower the tension.

Ukraine “demands proof” of the Russian military withdrawal from areas near its borders and denounced Russian “spurious accusations” of “genocide” in the east of the country.

Russia and Ukraine have been accusing each other for years of failing to comply with the Minsk agreements, sponsored by France and Germany, which are at an impasse.

In a joint declaration at the end of the Council session, France, Germany, Ireland, Estonia, Albania, Norway and the European Union called for “full compliance” with the Minsk agreements, “starting with unconditional respect for the ceasefire” .

These countries reiterated that in the event of Ukraine’s invasion, Russia will suffer “enormous consequences.”

The annual meeting of the Security Council, under the Russian presidency, had been planned for a long time. The United States and the United Kingdom decided at the last moment to send high-level representatives given the crisis between the West and Russia over Ukraine.