The Ukrainian president claimed he personally refused to implement the deal for peace in Donbass
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally refused to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements – a roadmap for peace in the east of the country, which was co-sponsored by Germany and France.
He made the admission during an interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday as he continues his tour across Europe.
Zelensky said he viewed the agreements as a “concession” on Ukraine’s part, and never once actually sought to implement them. Instead, they were merely used to exchange prisoners with the two breakaway Donbass republics.
The president claimed he openly told that to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2019, with all of them acting “surprised.”
“But as for Minsk as a whole, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: ‘We cannot implement it like this,’” Zelensky stated. “I told [Putin] the same as the other two. They were surprised and said: ‘If we had known beforehand that you would change the meaning of our meeting, then there would have been problems even before the summit.’"
The Minsk agreements, originally brokered in 2014 and further expanded in 2015, envisioned a roadmap for reconciliation between Ukraine and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The two regions rebelled against the country’s new authorities in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine’s failure to implement the agreement, which would have seen the breakaway territories reintegrated with the country but retain a special status, ultimately led to the ongoing conflict.
Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, multiple politicians have taken credit for the failure of the Minsk agreements, admitting they were merely a ruse to give Ukraine time to build up its military. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko was the first to admit last year that Kiev never intended to abide by them and used the deal to “create powerful armed forces.”
Merkel and another original signatory of the Minsk agreements, former French president Francois Hollande, have also since confirmed that this was actually the true goal of the deal.
Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to flop and for the Donbass crisis to be resolved by force. Russia claims that its military campaign in Ukraine, launched last February, preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help. Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said back in January.
“Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he stated at the time.
FreddieGray: More on the indigenous people of Canada. Canada is an occupied territory. The westerners invaded, subjugated the indigenous people, exposed them to genocide and continue to exploit thier natural resources. The Westerners are trying to do the same thing to Russia. The head of state of Canada is the British monarch. A sizable number of people are conditioned and configured to believe that the Westerners' illegal occupation of Canada and the US is ok. It's not. The US is an appendage of British Colonialism, the illegal Western immigrants rebelled against the British crown (that's why it has a president as the head of state). The indigenous people of North America should kick the invaders(westerners) out. Russia should arm these people. Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territory, where is the global outcry? The imperialists in the US illegally occupies Syria and steals it's resources..where's the global condemnation? It's either I'm Pro Russian (wrt the rus-ukr comflict) or neutral because I cannot in good faith support countries that actively engage in the same behaviour they falsely accuse Russia of indulging in. In addition, I'm an African, the hostility between the West and the East is beneficial to me...it serves as an expedited catalyst for a multipolar world. Most African countries gained their independence from the West after the USSR became a nuclear armed Country. The USSR never colonized Africa and they fought against western colonizers in Africa (the fight against apartheid which is a form of Nazism in South Africa is a reputable reference. The South Africans and the USSR emerged victorious).
ITKovasabiMod: The Ukrainian president claimed he personally refused to implement the deal for peace in Donbass
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally refused to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements – a roadmap for peace in the east of the country, which was co-sponsored by Germany and France.
He made the admission during an interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday as he continues his tour across Europe.
Zelensky said he viewed the agreements as a “concession” on Ukraine’s part, and never once actually sought to implement them. Instead, they were merely used to exchange prisoners with the two breakaway Donbass republics.
The president claimed he openly told that to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2019, with all of them acting “surprised.”
“But as for Minsk as a whole, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: ‘We cannot implement it like this,’” Zelensky stated. “I told [Putin] the same as the other two. They were surprised and said: ‘If we had known beforehand that you would change the meaning of our meeting, then there would have been problems even before the summit.’"
The Minsk agreements, originally brokered in 2014 and further expanded in 2015, envisioned a roadmap for reconciliation between Ukraine and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The two regions rebelled against the country’s new authorities in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine’s failure to implement the agreement, which would have seen the breakaway territories reintegrated with the country but retain a special status, ultimately led to the ongoing conflict.
Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, multiple politicians have taken credit for the failure of the Minsk agreements, admitting they were merely a ruse to give Ukraine time to build up its military. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko was the first to admit last year that Kiev never intended to abide by them and used the deal to “create powerful armed forces.”
Merkel and another original signatory of the Minsk agreements, former French president Francois Hollande, have also since confirmed that this was actually the true goal of the deal.
Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to flop and for the Donbass crisis to be resolved by force. Russia claims that its military campaign in Ukraine, launched last February, preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help. Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said back in January.
“Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he stated at the time.
No mind the guy. Now he will lose the donbass region and if NATO supplies jets then Russia will be much more brutal and may just destroy all of Ukraine. Zelensky and Ukrainians are the losers here .
Tiopii: But what is Russia's business with Donbas, they should allow Ukraine settle their internal affairs.
For those who have genuine questions and have no intent of being mischievous, the Minsk agreement was brokered by Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine...
Canada and the US are appendages of British colonialism.
Canada is thousands of miles away from Britain but the head of state of Canada is the British monarch.
Nigeria got her theoretical independence from Britain. The indigenous people of Canada never did...and they have no clean drinking water(although the occupiers/invaders continue to exploit their resources). The US has a president as it's head of state because the illegal migrants/colonizers from Europe that occupied what is today known as the US rebelled against the British crown. In other words, what we now know today as the US became a 'sovereign' country and has a president as it's head of state as a result of the civil war within the British empire.
American Revolutionary War Date April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783[10] (8 years, 4 months and 15 days) Ratification effective: May 12, 1784 Location Eastern North America, North Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Result U.S. and Allied victory Treaty of Paris British recognition of U.S. independence End of the First British Empire[11] Territorial changes Great Britain cedes control of all territories east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River to the United States
What's your opinion on the legality of these issues?
Do you have an opinion on the US illegal occupation of Syria? What about the Israeli illegal occupation of Palestine. Is that what Palestinians and Syrians want? I'm yet to see any man made law or rule that'll truncate the democratic will and right to self determination of the citizens of the Donbass republics.
OvazealousMod: On February 6, northern Syria was hit by a series of earthquakes reaching 7.8 on the Richter scale. The natural disaster killed over 2,000 Syrians and injured many more, amplifying the suffering of the war-torn nation, which has also borne a heavy burden of Western sanctions for years.
"This is going to just be more pain for the Syrian people, as I witnessed in Syria - many of the towns in Syria are still not rebuilt after the war. Many of the towns you'll go through you just see devastation, buildings that have crumbled, debris that hadn't even been taken away," Dan Kovalik, an adjunct professor of international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law told Sputnik. In the aftermath of the natural disaster, the Biden administration expressed its "deepest condolences" to the Syrians, but ruled out lifting the 2019 Caesar Act, a set of punitive measures suffocating the Arab Republic's economy. The sanctions package adopted by the Trump administration in 2019 blocked imports of essential goods like food, energy, and basic medical supplies and equipment to the country.
To complicate matters further, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their Western patrons are continuing their illegal occupation of Syria's oil fields, thus crippling the economy even further. The US and its NATO allies claim that the measures are aimed at punishing the legitimately elected government of Bashar al-Assad, whom Western governments and their proxies have been failing to topple for the past 12 years. Syria is one of the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world, with over 2,600 sanctions currently in place against the country by the US and its allies. "What people need to understand is a lot of these buildings in these towns are made of concrete, to make concrete is a very energy demanding thing, and one of the things Syria doesn't have now because of the sanctions and because of the US occupation of one third of Syria. While it's an oil rich country, the United States controls 80% of Syria's oil because of its occupation. And the US is actually stealing billions of dollars of Syrian oil, which is a war crime. They are plundering Syria of its oil," said Kovalik, who is also the author of “No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.”
Kovalik recollected that when he visited the Syrian Arab Republic, "people have about two hours of energy a day," which is still the case there. He emphasized that with that little energy, there's no way to make the materials necessary to rebuild. "So, you already have a country devastated by the war. And now you're going to have a country devastated by the earthquake. And reconstruction will be very difficult, if possible at all," he summarized. Speaking to Sputnik in October 2020, Dr. Ibrahim Alloush, economist and lecturer at the University of Damascus, noted that the US had been methodically ruining the Syrian economy for decades. He pointed out that Washington adhered to this ploy in the late 1970s, with a gradual tightening of sanctions on Syria over the decades. The US' illicit occupation of the country has led to severe energy shortages. Oil and gas are especially important, being used in sectors such as transportation, generating electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. In addition, as a food crisis was unfolding last year, the US stepped up smuggling Syrian wheat from illegally occupied regions. Prior to the civil war, Syria had been the only Arab country that was self-sufficient in wheat and had a surplus to export, as Basma Qaddour, a Syrian journalist and co-author of "Voices from Syria," told Sputnik in May 2022. According to her, the US-backed SDF have grabbed and sold Syrian grain over the past years in coordination with the US military. What's more, US-led coalition forces burnt Syrian crops in order to raise the commodity’s purchasing price and force farmers into selling grain, according to her.
US ‘Cries Crocodile Tears’ About Quakes’ Impact on Syria While Keeping Crushing Sanctions in Place
Washington Deprives Syrians of Aid & Choice Washington made it clear that it would not provide humanitarian aid to Damascus in the wake of the quakes, but would be working with "NGO partners on the ground," not elaborating on who these "partners on the ground" are exactly and when precisely the much-needed help would arrive. Meanwhile, many states have not extended their helping hand to the Arab Republic so far, either, as they are afraid of sanctions, according to Elijah Magnier, veteran war correspondent. "Only a few countries, six or seven countries like Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia and the Emirates, rushed to help Syria," Magnier told Sputnik. "The problem is all the other countries feel afraid of the American sanctions because they were told that any flight that landed in Damascus means a violation of the US and EU sanctions."
Western countries have so far failed to provide aid not only to Syrians living in the areas controlled by the government, but also to those under the control of jihadists and Syrian rebels, according to the war correspondent. "All the friends of Syria that pretend to be the friends of Syria, i.e. Europe and the United States, are not helping the Syrian even in the area under the rebel and jihadist control," Magnier said. "So what we have here in Syria, we have very bad weather, we have the snow, have only Iran that is supplying Syria with oil once a month and that is not enough for the necessity and the need of the country, because the real source of oil comes from northeast Syria that is occupied by the Americans."
Furthermore, the Syrian government is not able to help refugees living in the US-controlled al-Tanf zone, according to him. "[Damascus] doesn't have the possibility to export food to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirati and other Gulf countries because there are harsh US-EU sanctions," the journalist said. "The food basket is again in the northeast [of the country] which is under the control of the Americans. So, all of that, it makes the government of Syria hardly able to maintain paying some salaries and able to look after the population and certainly cannot reconstruct the country and reconstruct the 70% of the area under the control of the government. It is impossible to go and look at those who are living in tents, who are [living] without water, without electricity."
The West's Syria strategy and attitude to the population of the Middle Eastern country is mind-boggling, according to the veteran war correspondent. It's unclear what the exact goals the US and its NATO allies want to reach in the Middle East are, given that their sanctions policy has failed a myriad of times, he noted, adding that it has not worked when it comes to Iran, nor has it worked in Russia.
"The sanctions against Iran have not changed anything in 43 years since 1979, and the sanctions against Syria since 2019 will not change anything," he remarked. The US doctrine in a nutshell is to break the population's legs and arms to force them into turning against their rulers, the correspondent noted. However, it does not work like that. "I am a war correspondent. I lived in more than a dozen wars and I can tell you, people turn into their survival mode. They turn to how they are going to buy the bread, how are they going to buy gasoline? And they don't give a damn about the politics because they will not turn against the leader and say 'It is all your fault!' They will say these people are allowing us to starve, watching us, not supporting us," Magnier concluded. SOURCE
Adjovi: If they like they should lift it it not, countries are already ignoring them and sending aids to Syria already. To hell with usa and their evil sanctions dem no get power again, na initial gragra remain. Last kick of a dead (Dying) horse. USAsy hegemony is dwindling daily. Nations are now standing up to them. Na only European nations still dey lick their ass and it won't be for long.
PlanktonX: So those homosexual pastors, now believe that Jesus Christ is wrong when he said my Father in heaven.
Doesn't that ring a bell that the Father is a He being and Spirit.
This demon called satan had already instituted his agents in many churches and topest positions in govt's.
Same reason we are dying to find just a single saint to represent us in govt. Do you think Nigeria politicians are wicked? NO they are not. They are doing the biddings of their master. Even if they want to be good, they can't. Else they pay for it.
So, let us ask God the father, for His choice of candidate.
Tbh, it's common knowledge that when you say West or Westerners, you're referring to Western Europe/Western Europeans..depending on the context, it may include the US, Australia Canada. They're then known as the collective West or just the West. For clarification, the westerners I was referring to on this thread and the other thread is Europeans from Western Europe.
orisa37: AS LONG AS SELENSKY LIVES, NO INCH OF UKRAINE SHALL BE UNDER RUSSIA. RUSSIA IS JUST A BULLY FOR NOTHING.
While you might sympathize with the Ukrainian people, you should also Face the truth, the whole Crimea is under Russian 100%, also another new 3 eastern Ukrainian region is also under Russia’s control. Nothing can take those region away from Russia, not Biden nor NATO. We hope there will be a broker of peace between this 2 countries. To people that call Russia the aggressor, I hope you can read this.
