Vladimir Putin
Kiev is betting on a military solution to the conflict in the South-East of the country in an effort to disrupt the Minsk agreements by the escalation of the situation, said the President of Russia Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Board of the Federal security service. Transcript of President’s speech published on Thursday, February 16, on the Kremlin website.
The Russian leader said that the Ukrainian authorities are “manifestly not ready for a peaceful solution.” “Moreover, [the Kiev authorities] openly talking about the organization of subversive and terrorist Subversion, including in Russia”, — Putin said, stressing that Moscow “cannot disturb”.
February 8 at his office on the basis of “Somalia” near Donetsk was killed the commander of the battalion of the eponymous self-proclaimed Donetsk national Republic (DND) Mikhail Tolstoy (call Givi). It was noted that the premises were fired from rocket thrower “bumblebee”. The leadership of the DNI accused in the incident the Ukrainian intelligence services.
Earlier this month, Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed the view that the West has no illusions about the role played by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in the latest round of conflict in the Donbass, and recalled that the Ukrainian leader signed the Minsk agreement, therefore, “obliged to comply with them”.
The aggravation of the situation in the South-East of Ukraine began in late January after the APU attempts to go on the offensive. The battles of Avdiyivka were the most violent since August 2015, when Kiev security forces conducted massive bombardment of the territory of the DNI.
The Minsk agreement is the document agreed at the summit in Minsk in February 2015 leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine, Russia in the format “channel four” to de-escalate the armed conflict in the South-East of Ukraine.