Moscow is confident that the Minsk agreements have no alternative in resolving the conflict in Donbass. This was announced to reporters by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov on Friday, July 31. So he commented on the publication in the Ukrainian media of an alleged letter from the deputy head of the presidential administration Dmitry Kozak.
“I don’t know what the Ukrainian media published, I didn’t have the opportunity to get acquainted with it,” Peskov said. At the same time, he added that “Kozak did not write or speak about any curtailment of negotiations.”
According to the press secretary, Russia “was, is and remains” committed to the Minsk agreements. Moscow is sure that in this case they have no alternative.
The day before, Strana.ua reported that Kozak, who oversees the Ukrainian direction in the Kremlin, wrote a letter to the adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel with copies for the representatives of France and Ukraine, in particular, for the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, in which he allegedly called negotiations on Donbass at the level of political advisers was meaningless and offered to abandon this format.
The publication also notes that the Russian politician proposed to limit the work of assistants to the leaders of the Normandy Four countries, leaving them to deal only with technical support of the meetings of heads of state. And the coordination of issues dealt with by Kozak, Ermak and advisers to the leaders of France and Germany earlier should be transferred to the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.
According to Boris Gryzlov, the plenipotentiary representative of Russia in the contact group on resolving the situation in Donbass, the Ukrainian delegation stated that it does not consider itself bound by any obligations related to the Minsk agreements.
Earlier, on July 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kiev insists on a detailed deciphering of each paragraph of the Minsk agreements in order to understand which of them can be implemented.
Shortly before this, Deputy Prime Minister and representative of Ukraine in the contact group Alexei Reznikov expressed the opinion that the Minsk agreements were outdated and could be abandoned. At the same time, he declared his commitment to the agreements and pointed out the need to “modernize” them.