BELGRADE, February 12. /TASS/. Russia is skeptical about a successful outcome of possible talks with Kiev because of a non-stopping flow of false promises from the West, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said in an interview with Serbia’s Vecernje Novosti newspaper which came out on Sunday.
"We don’t believe. Because of what has happened, because of the lies about the Minsk agreements, about NATO’s expansion," he said when asked whether it is possible to believe in success of peace talks after German former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks that the Minsk agreements on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass, which were in force from early 2015 to early 2022, were a mere attempt to win time for Ukraine.
"The special operation is being conducted in full compliance with international law and the United Nations Charter, taking into account the situation in Donbass which had been developing for the past eight years by means of killing Russians. The Kiev regime unleashed a war against Russians in Donbass back in 2014, after the state coup, and will complete support from the West. Since then, we have been trying to find a peaceful, political solution, but there were too many lies on the other part and the other participants in the talks, but for Russia, are openly saying now that they did not want the Minsk agreements to be implements, that they wanted to win time to strengthen Ukraine’s army and intensify the was in Donbass," the Russian diplomat stressed.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday that the West’s lies about the goals of the Minsk agreements needs to be formally sealed and qualified within the legal framework. According to Zakharova, from the very outset, Germany, France and Ukraine implied something totally opposite to what they had openly pledged to their people, to Europe and the world in general.
Ukrainian former President Pyotr Poroshenko said earlier that the 2015 Minsk agreements had made it possible to reform Ukraine’s armed forces and establish an international coalition against Russia. German former Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with the Die Zeit newspaper last December that the Minsk accords were "an attempt to buy Ukraine time to become stronger." According to her, "it was clear to everyone" that the conflict had been frozen and the issue had not been resolved, "but it provided precious time to Ukraine." The then French President Francois Hollande, who also took part in the discussions of the Package of Measures on the implementation of the Minsk accords in 2015, later confirmed Merkel’s statement.