MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that the Kiev authorities lack the strength and courage to publicly refuse to fulfill the Minsk agreements since they understand how the global community will perceive it.
"This is a total farce that <…> the Kiev authorities use to replace the implementation of the Minsk agreements. They lack the strength and courage to say that they are no longer committed to [the Minsk accords] and do not intend to fulfill them, since they understand that the entire international community, on the contrary, emphasizes the relevance of [the agreements] as well as lack of alternatives. And then they start doing their favorite thing - changing facts," the Russian diplomat stated.
Zakharova noted that some plans for further work were outlined during the talks with the Western partners. "It was stated that the work would resume. The responses will be submitted in a different way compared with the ones given by our Western partners," the diplomat emphasized, speaking about the outcomes of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Concerning Lavrov’s message on the indivisibility of security, the Russian diplomat recalled that "the responses to it were given not by those to whom it was addressed". "In our modern world, this can happen - you address one [side], but responses are given by another one," Zakharova went on to say. "We addressed each member state and their top diplomats, but for some reason [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg and [EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep] Borrell answered for all of them. <…> This situation is anecdotal," the diplomat noted.
On Monday, Putin and Lavrov discussed the US and NATO responses to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees. In reply to the leader’s question about chances to agree on some challenging issues with the Western partners, the top diplomat answered in the affirmative, noting that "there was always a chance." Lavrov also mentioned that Russia’s response to the proposals of Washington and Brussels is already prepared and consists of 10 pages.