"The sooner the EU turns over the page of its worries for the fate of its Ukrainian project which has nothing to do with the Ukrainian people, the better it will be for the European Union," he underlined.
"If all the energy our European partners spend on developing various scenarios of sanctions and their publicity were used for good deeds, namely the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis in line with the obligations undertaken by the EU as a signatory of the Geneva communique, it would be more correct and sensible," Chizhov said.
Commenting on the initiative to convene the Geneva-2 conference, Chizhov noted that it would only make sense if representatives of Ukrainian regions participated in it.
"The German foreign minister suggests preliminary round table discussions involving all political forces of Ukraine. We support it. Everything bumps into Kiev's position," the Russian envoy said. "The attempts to present Russia as representative of Ukraine's southeast is utter nonsense. The refusal by Donetsk and Luhansk to postpone the date of the referendum only confirms the untenability of this approach."
"In the old group (Russia, the European Union, the USA and Ukraine), we can only say that Kiev failed to meet its commitments within the framework of the first Geneva meeting, but we're saying it anyway. In the long run, it is not Russia that should comply with the Geneva communique's provision on turning in weapons including by Right Sector militants and freeing administrative buildings in Kiev and the need to stop violence," Chizhov said.
As for western journalists' favorite question about "how much closer Ukraine has come to EU membership", Chizhov expressed confidence that this process had been negative. "Ukraine is only coming further away from this prospect," he said.