Moscow Against Review, Change of Minsk Agreements on Ukraine Reconciliation

Moscow is not in favor of reviewing or amending the Minsk agreements on Ukraine reconciliation that has already been agreed upon by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that he is not willing to review or make any changes to the already signed Minsk agreements on Ukraine reconciliation.

“The sequence of steps in these agreements is already set out and [there should] be no attempt to distract attention from them with new initiatives because I’ve already heard some sort of ideas of ‘let’s intensify the Minsk agreements’ but we’ll never finish the process of intensifying or broadening them, everything in them is written clearly.”

Russia’s top diplomat said the most important thing is for all of the parties to fulfill the agreements.

Lavrov will participate in the Normandy format discussions with his counterparts from Germany, France, and Ukraine slated for April 13 in Berlin to discuss the current situation on fulfilling the Minsk agreements.

On February 12, the Normandy Four leaders agreed on a set of measures to stop the military confrontation between Kiev forces and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine, which has claimed over 6,000 lives since April 2014.

The measures, among other points, stipulate a ceasefire that came into force in eastern Ukraine on February 15.

The 13-point plan also envisions constitutional reform in Ukraine, a decentralization of power, as well as granting special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.

According to international monitors in eastern Ukraine, the truce is generally holding.