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Russia did everything to stop fratricide in Donbass, says Putin

The Minsk accords were signed for settling the Donbass conflict peacefully, the Russian leader pointed

MOSCOW, July 12. /TASS/. Russia did everything possible to stop the fratricide in Donbass, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an article, On the Historical Unity of the Russians and Ukrainians, posted on the Kremlin’s website on Monday.

"The state coup and the ensuing actions by the Ukrainian authorities inevitably provoked confrontation and a civil war," the Russian leader said.

Putin cited the data of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, which suggested that "the victims related to the conflict in Donbass exceeded 13,000 people, including the elderly and children". "Terrible and unrecoverable losses," the head of state stressed.

"Russia did everything to stop the fratricide," Putin pointed out, adding that "the Minsk accords were signed for settling the Donbass conflict peacefully".

The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014 after a state coup in Kiev.

Putin stated his intention to write an article on the history of the Russian people and its links with Ukraine during the Direct Line with President Vladimir Putin on June 30. The Russian leader expressed the hope that residents of both counties would get acquainted with the article. Putin’s previous article, Being Open, Despite the Past, was published in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit on June 22, and was timed for the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Soviet Union’s 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.