MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has blamed Western partners for violating their own arrangements concerning the regulation of the crisis in Ukraine.
"When we (Russia) called for reverting to the fulfillment of the obligation assumed on February 21 and tried to appeal to our western partners, especially those who were directly involved in preparing this document, they told us that the train was gone and that the situation had changed. How could the situation take such a turn that the task of the country's national unity has become irrelevant?" said Lavrov in an interview with Rossiya-1 broadcaster and Russia Today TV channel.
The agreement between the opposition and the president of Ukraine (the then Viktor Yanukovych) was signed on February 21 in the presence of the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland. The first provision of the agreement was to set up a government of national unity .
“As you can see, because of such absurd elaborations that they provided us with as well as a number of other reasons, we insisted on the fulfillment of the Geneva convention with a call for constitutional reform. In return, they told us that ‘you know the statement is very good; the US, the EU and Ukraine have signed it, but there is already a peace plan proposed by Poroshenko [Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko]'. That is to say, the goalposts are being moved all the time, as the English say, and a new game as if starts again. This is unfair, first of all, and absolutely ineffective,” Lavrov stressed.
In April, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the pro-independence movement of the country's southeast not accepting the illegitimate government that was brought on by the coup this February. According to UN estimates, the five-month conflict has killed over 3,500 people and injured over 8,000.
On September 5, the trilateral Contact Group on the situation on Ukraine met in Minsk. As a result of the meeting, the Kiev authorities and the self-proclaimed people's republics of Luhansk and Donetsk agreed on a ceasefire, which took effect on the same day. The sides also agreed to an international monitoring, exchange of prisoners and the opening of humanitarian corridors.
