MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. Sanctions should be imposed on Kiev for violating the Minsk agreements on crisis settlement in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday.
"The issue of imposing sanctions on Kiev is dictated by the logic of events," Peskov said. "However, the only thing we can do is to express regret that no one wants to follow this obvious logic," he added. "On the contrary, everyone tries to blame Russia for everything, which contradicts the logic of recent developments," the spokesman noted.
"In this case, there could be no official addresses" to Berlin or Paris urging them to influence Kiev, Peskov said. Russia, Germany and France "are countries-guarantors of the Minsk agreements, they do not participate in the conflict," the spokesman noted. "The leaders of these countries signed the document in Minsk, they guaranteed those concrete agreements which were signed by representatives of Kiev and in the presence of an OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] representative," Peskov said.
"All countries should bear their share of responsibility for ensuring that the conditions [of the Minsk agreements] are fulfilled," he added. "Ignoring non-compliance with the Minsk agreements by one side does not facilitate stabilization," Peskov said.
Moscow is concerned with continuous shelling
The Kremlin is concerned about continuing shellings in the south-east of Ukraine in violation of the Minsk agreements, Peskov said earlier on Monday.
"Moscow is very concerned about continuing shelling with the use of heavy artillery and violations of concrete points of the Minsk agreements," Peskov told journalists.
The Ukrainian forces have violated 52 times the ceasefire regime in east Ukraine over the last 24 hours, the defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Monday.
"Fifty-two violations [of ceasefire regime] were registered over the last 24 hours. Among them were 24 mortar shellings, ten tank shellings, and two anti-tank guided missiles. Other 16 times shots were fired from automatic grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns and small arms," the Donetsk News Agency quoted the DPR defense ministry as saying.
The most intensive shellings were registered in settlements of Shirokino and Spartak, the ministry noted. No civilians were injured in the incidents, it added.