The UN did not comment on the words of Merkel and Hollande about the Minsk agreements

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary General, declined to comment on statements by ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Francois Hollande about the Minsk agreements, transmits “RIA News”.

“I would leave the historical analysis to reporters, former officials and historians,” Dujarric said, answering the question of how the words of Merkel and Hollande reflect the position of the Secretary General on the Minsk agreements.

According to the representative of the organization, now the UN is fully focused on trying to end the conflict.

On December 7, Merkel, in an interview with Die Zeit, said that “everyone understood” that the Minsk agreements only froze the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but did not solve it. According to her, the 2014 agreements gave Kyiv “priceless time.” At the end of December, Hollande, who took part in the signing of the agreements, declaredthat the Minsk agreements allowed Ukraine to strengthen the armed forces.

Vice Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev, commenting on the statements of politicians, named their “fixation of betrayal”. He noted that Russia “consistently and honestly” tried to act as a guarantor of the Minsk agreements, but it soon became clear that the sabotage of the agreements by “rabid Kyiv and irresponsible collective Brussels launched the development of events according to the only remaining scenario.”

The Trilateral Contact Group (authorized by Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) in September 2014 signed the first Minsk agreements, which ended the active part of the hostilities in the south-east of Ukraine. The second Minsk agreements stopped the escalation of the conflict in February 2015 in the Debaltseve region and were signed with the participation of Germany and France.