MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Kiev’s recent proposals for the settlement in Donbass were absurd. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and France started to advocate "some 10 steps" that were proposed for the Normandy Format in early December, Lavrov said in an interview with the Soloviev Live YouTube channel released on Monday. The proposals are a "travesty of the common sense," he said.
Zelensky, for example, demands to introduce a ceasefire, but his government didn’t support the earlier agreement for a ceasefire that was reached in July 2020. The agreement called on the sides to hold off on opening return fire immediately, first waiting for a while and reporting incidents up the chain of command, he said.
The unrecognized republics issued the appropriate orders immediately, while Kiev didn’t, until much later, Lavrov said.
The top Russian diplomat also said that he regularly watches reports by Russian journalists from the Donbass side of the contact line, which show a huge number of buildings in ruin and people living in constant danger of coming under gunfire. But there’s no opportunity to see how things stand on the other side of the contact line, because, he said, Ukraine doesn’t allow reporters access to the conflict zone unless they need to film a visit by Zelensky.