Kremlin: West should use its influence on Kiev for Minsk deal implementation

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Moscow believes that the West should use all its leverage to convince the Ukrainian authorities to fulfill the Minsk-2 deal as its implementation is at an impasse due to Kiev’s fault, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

"Now we may once again say with many regrets that there is the lack of any progress [in implementing the Minsk deals]," Peskov told reporters. Only Kiev can break the current impasse with fulfilling the Minsk agreements, he said.

The Kremlin spokesman said "there should be no interpretations as everything is put down in black and white on the paper and Kiev is not implementing the Minsk deals."

"Everything is written clearly what needs to be done and this should be done by Kiev," he stressed.

This issue has been repeatedly discussed during the contacts of the Russian representatives, and namely the Russian president with the representatives of the United States and European countries.

"We have called on our partners to use all the possible tools for the influence on Kiev to persuade it to stick to its commitments," he said.

The Minsk accords, known as the Minsk 2, were signed on February 12, 2015 after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko.

The Minsk deal envisages ceasefire, weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbass, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economic and humanitarian aspects of the Minsk accords.

The Ukrainian forces and militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.