MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. Kiev may try to use tensions in southeast Ukraine as a reason for completely giving up the Minsk peace accords, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday.

"The essence of what is happening around Avdeyevka and already other communities at the engagement line is that Kiev is trying to use combat engagements it has provoked as a reason for completely giving up the Minsk accords," Ushakov told journalists.

"As it seems to us, Kiev wants with the help of this latest and rudest provocation in the area of Avdeyevka to check the degree of readiness of the already new US administration: whether or not it is ready habitually to support any trick by the Ukrainian military. This seems to be a certain test," the presidential aide said. "Kiev does not want the situation to be resolved. Kiev does not need the Minsk agreements. It only needs the Minsk format as a cover and a way of exerting pressure on Moscow," he told reporters.

"Kiev is defiantly reluctant to comply with the Minsk agreements," he said. "Ukraine has not actually made a single step to implement them over the past two years." "Everyone sees that, it is obvious. Meanwhile, the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the US over the lack of progress in the context of the Minsk process are still directed against Russia." Ushakov described this situation as paradoxical. "We cannot do Kiev’s job," he emphasized.

The Kremlin aide called provocations against the Donbass militias "another clear confirmation of the fact that Kiev is unprepared and will not implement the Minsk agreements."

Kiev is now attempting to put the blame on Moscow and Donbass for making the Minsk accords unrealizable, the Kremlin aide said.

"For us, this Kiev’s game can be discerned quite easily," Ushakov said.

"It is to be hoped that the West will also begin to understand this game," he added.

In reply to a question about when the situation in southeast Ukraine might degrade to the resumption of a full-blown war, the Kremlin aide noted: "It has degraded already now over the past twenty-four hours through Kiev’s fault."

As the Kremlin aide said, Kiev started shelling the Donbass militia’s positions and the militia fighters had to retaliate. "The entire situation around fulfilling the Minsk accords has aggravated and this is what Kiev actually wants," the presidential aide said.