MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin has said Thursday that Kiev does not plan to observe the Minsk agreements.
"The situation in Ukraine is far from what can be called stable." Naryshkin said at a meeting with the French delegation led National Assembly deputy and co-chairman of the "French-Russian Dialogue" association Thierry Mariani.
"Unfortunately, Kiev does not plan to observe the Minsk agreements, the basis of which is, of course, political dialogue between Kiev and Donbas," the speaker said. "People are dying, humanitarian catastrophe continues, people in Donbas do not have enough food, medicines and medical service," he noted.
"And all this is going on in the very center of Europe — democratic, civilized Europe — and EU, unfortunately, supports the actions of official Kiev," Naryshkin said.
Minsk agreements on Ukraine
The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.
The Minsk accords envisage ceasefire, weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.
The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.