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Moscow blames Kiev for sabotaging Minsk peace deal

A diplomat says Russia sees a growing number of attempts by Kiev to sabotage the Minsk peace agreements

PSKOV, May 30. /TASS/. Russia sees a growing number of attempts by Kiev to torpedo the Minsk peace agreements, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said during the Fort Ross Dialogue forum on Tuesday.

"We see a growing and increasing sabotage by the Ukrainian political leadership in regard to implementing the Minsk agreements," Ryabkov said. "We cannot ensure the efficiency of this process for another party."

According to the diplomat, the February 2015 Minsk agreements "have become a sacred utterance that our colleagues, namely participants of the G7, repeat at the level of political instincts and reflexes."

"If someone wanted to achieve the Minsk accords’ implementation, they should have sent signals to the authorities in Kiev," he stressed. "They (the G7 members) must redirect all these new ‘sanction mantras’ to themselves, as this has no significance to us and is utterly misdirected."

Those who continue addressing the demands of implementing the Minsk agreements to Moscow do not understand the real situation and possibly have never read the document itself, Ryabkov said.

The Minsk agreements lay the foundation for a peaceful settlement in Donbass. The deal envisages not only a ceasefire and a withdrawal of weapons, amnesty and restoration of economic ties, but also deep constitutional reforms in Ukraine to decentralize power, granting special status to certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the country’s east.