MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/. Ukraine may promise not to join NATO as part of a peace agreement, but Russia must be prepared for it to be violated, Governor of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo said in an interview with TASS.
"Ukraine may promise us that it will not violate the peace agreement. <…> However, this does not mean it is one hundred percent certain. Therefore, we still need to be prepared for any turn of events," he said, responding to a question about the possibility of Ukraine obtaining a non-aligned status.
Saldo recalled the situation with the Minsk Agreements, which were intended to be aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. "But all of that, as the leaders of [Western] countries themselves later admitted, was a deliberate diplomatic trick to buy time, to arm Ukraine, to incite public anger through various actions and to unleash the conflict in Donbass," the governor explained.