MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. European countries cannot demand anything from Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, as this will expose that their mediation activities in Ukraine have failed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily, posted on the newspaper website on Tuesday.
"On the one hand, he is not listening either to Germany or to France as he has American ‘patrons’," Lavrov said. "While on the other hand, they feel uncomfortable putting pressure on him publicly, because this way they will confirm that they have failed in their ‘mediation’ as they call it," the top Russian diplomat said.
In the midst of the Maidan developments, on February 21, 2014, an agreement on a peaceful settlement of the political crisis in Ukraine was signed in Kiev between the then President Viktor Yanukovich and the opposition. Germany, France and Poland acted as its guarantors.
The document envisaged a return to the 2004 constitution, an early presidential election and creation of ‘a government of national trust,’ as well as the withdrawal of law enforcement forces from central Kiev and surrender of weapons by the opposition.
On the same day, the Ukrainian parliament passed the laws on the return to the 2004 constitution and the release of all people detained during the protests. However, the same evening radical activists attacked the government buildings. The president had to flee the capital city and then the country.
Germany and France also became parties to the Minsk agreements on Ukraine in February 2015.