MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. German ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s revelation that the Minsk agreements were only signed to give Ukraine time to muster up military strength means that any accords penned by the EU are not to be trusted, leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin said on Monday.
"This is an absolutely frank admission that today’s seemingly progressive Europe, as embodied by Germany, France and others, cannot be trusted at all. Not only can their utterances not be trusted, but any agreements, international documents or international pacts approved by UN Security Council resolutions cannot be trusted as well. It erodes the architecture of cooperation in the global arena and is deplorable," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
According to Pushilin, Merkel’s revelation demonstrates the parties’ true intentions. While Russia was trying to settle the conflict diplomatically, the West took a different position. "Our opponents are ready to take absolutely any steps and stop at nothing. It is safe to say that the guilt for the blood that has been shed in Donbass over these eight and a half years, people’s deaths <…> rests squarely on the shoulders of Western nations and on Mrs. Merkel personally," he specified.
In an interview with the German national weekly Die Zeit published on December 7, Merkel described the conclusion of the Minsk agreements in 2014 as a ploy to buy Ukraine time to build up military strength. She argued that it was clear to everyone that the conflict was stalled and the problem had not been resolved, "but this was what gave Ukraine invaluable time." She doubted whether NATO countries would have been able to provide support to Kiev at that time to the same extent that they are doing now.
Ukraine’s southeastern regions, where most residents are Russian-speakers, refused to recognize the regime that grabbed power amid the riots following the February 2014 coup in Ukraine. In response to the grassroots protests in these areas, the Kiev regime launched a military crusade against Donbass in mid-April 2014. The large-scale shelling of residential quarters, even with the use of air power, led to a humanitarian disaster in the region. Given these conditions, a referendum on the self-determination of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LPR and DPR) was organized and their state sovereignty was proclaimed in May 2014.
A peace settlement to the conflict in Donbass rested on the Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, that was signed by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine that consisted of senior envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, after 16-hour talks between the leaders of the Normandy Four nations, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. The document envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and the people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk and the subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including amnesty, prisoner swaps, the resumption of economic ties, local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.
However, the negotiating process ultimately reached a dead end due to Ukraine’s refusal to implement the political provisions of Minsk-2. Kiev was stalling the peace process for years to ultimately claim that the Minsk agreements were unacceptable. This said, it refused any direct dialogue with the Donbass republics.