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Former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, disclosed that Kiev and its U.S. backers should bear the main responsibility for the failure of the Minsk Agreements, which sought to end the war in the Donbass region.
The 2014 coup d'etat in Ukraine, where the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych was toppled over his decision to refuse the Ukraine-EU association agreement in favor of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union in late 2013, brought about an eight-year-long civil war in the country. From that point, political forces looking for the integration of Kiev into the European Union and NATO took power.
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The diplomat also noted that Ukraine, Russia, Israel, the United States and other EU countries formed an initiative group created to develop a plan to enable the implementation of the agreements. "Since 2015 and until the beginning of 2022 the group took care of organizational work, negotiations, persuasion, clarification with the representatives of the parties involved. Discussions were conducted mostly correctly, no one denied that peace must be achieved. But in the end we received neither yes nor no," he argued.
According to Viktor Yanukovych, Kiev sabotaged Minsk, while Biden's administration, for its part, maintained that complex internal discussions were being carried out, with plenty of contradictions. The former president also noted that president Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed a detailed plan he proposed to end the ongoing crisis in the Donbass region.
He pointed out that the plan aimed at the signing of a peace agreement between Ukraine and Donbass, as well as the creation of an international fund for the reconstruction of Donbass and the political, economic and social reintegration of the region into Ukraine.
Former President of Ukraine ���� Viktor Yanukovych: "Zelensky was presented with a settlement plan in Donbass and he refused," and added in an interview with Sputnik Agency today, Monday, that "there is still a chance to stop the tragedy in Ukraine." pic.twitter.com/QEbSMrmmtN
— aabdou (@aabdou48511563) March 14, 2022
The projet was handed to Volodymyr Zelensky, who promised that he would study it and offer feedback. He answered quickly, saying that they were not interested in it. The former president alerted that the project advocated peace, and if they are not interested in it, then they are not interested in peace.
Yanukovych stressed that during the election campaign, Zelensky promised Ukrainians that while he wasn't the one to start the military conflict in Ukraine, he was the one who would finish it. As of today, this has unfortunately not happened, the former president stated. In this regard, he expressed that there is still a real chance to achieve peace in Ukraine.
The escalation of tensions in the European continent began last February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special military operation in Ukraine following a request for help from the leaders of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, a region facing increased shelling by Ukrainian military troops. The Russian leader has repeatedly said that the operation was aimed at demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine.
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