The Kremlin reported on Wednesday the first “positive signals” after Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Ukraine, regarding the settlement of the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists, a process paralyzed for years.
“There have been positive signals about Ukraine’s decision to act only on the basis of the Minsk agreements, this is a plus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed, before making a rebuke: “we have not heard President (Ukrainian Volodymyr) Zelensky say that he is ready to deal with it quickly”.
Moscow accuses Ukraine of refusing to implement the 2015 Minsk accords that are supposed to bring an end to the war in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people in eight years, according to the UN. Despite its denials, Russia is widely seen as instigating the conflict by supporting the separatists militarily and politically.
Mr. Peskov was reacting to the remarks of President Zelensky, who received his French counterpart the day before. The visit followed talks on Monday between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin on the Russia-West crisis over Ukraine and the war in the east of the country. After this meeting, the French head of state assured from Ukraine that the Russian president had promised not to be “at the origin of the escalation”.
In separate comments, a deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Pankin, said Moscow hoped that tensions over Ukraine and Russia’s security demands from the West would be resolved diplomatically, the Interfax news agency reported. But at the same time, the main deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov bluntly commented on a press information. Russian media reported that Ukraine has asked the United States to provide them with THAAD missile defense systems, which have been in service since 2008. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Washington is seriously considering such supplies. If this “provocation” were to materialize, it would reduce the chances of a diplomatic political resolution to the deadlock over Ukraine, Ryabkov warned.
The political advisers of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany are due to meet in Berlin on Thursday to try to find ways to revive the peace process in Donbass and to discuss the holding of a possible summit of the leaders of the four countries.