LUGANSK, August 27. /TASS/. Ukraine's preparations for a military conflict with Russia and its unwillingness to negotiate became obvious within three months after the Normandy Four summit in Paris in December 2019, Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador of the Lugansk People's Republic in Russia, told TASS.

Earlier, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Alexey Danilov said that the country's authorities had been preparing for a military conflict with Russia since December 2019, when Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky rejected all compromise options for resolving the situation in Donbass at the Normandy Four summit in Paris.

"The fact that Ukraine received an instruction not to agree on anything, either in Minsk or in the Normandy formats, and that they began to prepare it for military conflict, became completely clear within the first three months after Paris. They completely changed the line-up of the negotiators and completely avoided any agreements capable of providing at least some long-term truce," the official said.

According to him, the Ukrainian authorities were engaged in provocations and the destruction of the signed agreements, which forced Russia to conduct a special military operation. He noted that by ignoring the results of the Paris summit in 2019, the Ukrainian regime has lost the last opportunity to save the country and avoid mass bloodshed.

"The significance of Zelensky or Danilov in preparing for the military conflict was minimal, the decision was made for them by Western leaders <...> He added that no adequate president, guided in his actions by the interests of his people, could make a decision to destroy his country and his people in the interests of another state," Miroshnik added.

An internal armed conflict with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics who declared their independence has been underway in Donbass since 2014. In order to settle it, the Minsk Accords were signed back in February 2015 with the direct participation of the Normandy Four leaders (Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine). The Normandy Four then convened five more times in order to get the process going. Their last summit was held in Paris in December 2019. Back then, the parties again mapped out the four-month plan of action, but it was not implemented either.