Zakharova called Merkel’s words about the Minsk agreements “an application for a tribunal”

The statement of ex-Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel that the Minsk agreements were signed in order to “give Ukraine time” is, in fact, an application for a tribunal. This opinion was expressed by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova at a briefing.

“They needed a conflict, they were ready for it back then, in 2015. This (what Merkel said) is a specific application for a tribunal. We received invaluable proof of what has been talked about for many years. It was a criminal provocation,” she said.

Zakharova explained that this was the first time such a confession had been made so clearly, moreover, from the leader of a country that had a tremendous influence on “political fermentation within, as it were, sovereign Ukraine.” In Germany, according to her assessment, those political elites were formed, which then “created the history” of modern Ukraine.

Previously, Merkel interview Die Zeit told Die Zeit that “everyone understood” that the conflict in eastern Ukraine had been frozen, not resolved, but the freeze had given Kyiv “priceless time.”

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 that had been going on since April of the same year. The second Minsk agreements stopped the escalation of the conflict in February 2015 in the Debaltseve region. The Minsk package of measures included a ceasefire in the southeast of the country, the withdrawal of weapons, an amnesty, the resumption of economic ties, as well as a constitutional reform in Ukraine. Its result was to be the decentralization of power in Ukraine, taking into account the granting of a special status to certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

Ukraine has not fulfilled its obligations under the agreements, and it also refused to negotiate directly with representatives of the DPR and LPR. February 22, 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin named “killed” the Minsk agreements long before the recognition by Russia in February of the DPR and LPR.

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