EU Foreign Ministers Support Continuation of Anti-Russian Sanctions

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said that the EU foreign ministers supported the continuation of sanctions against Russia.

WARSAW (Sputnik) — The EU foreign ministers supported the continuation of sanctions against Russia, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said Monday after the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.

"The majority of those who were speaking [during the meeting] definitely confirmed that the sanctions should be continued. Russia is an uncooperative state that does not implement the Minsk agreements, so there is nothing to discuss," Waszczykowski told reporters as quoted by the PAP news agency.

In 2014, Ukrainian authorities launched a special military operation in the country’s southeast, after local residents refused to recognize the new authorities in Kiev, which took the power as a result of what many considered as a coup, and established the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR).

In February 2015, the warring parties to the Ukrainian conflict signed the Minsk peace accords in order to cease fire in the crisis-torn region. Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, as the members of the Normandy Four, helped negotiate the Donbas ceasefire. It has been, however, repeatedly breached, with the conflicting sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire regime.

Relations between Moscow and the West deteriorated in 2014 after Crimea voted to reunite with Russia and as military clashes escalated in eastern Ukraine. The European Union and the United States imposed numerous sanctions against Russia over Moscow's alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict, a claim Russia has repeatedly refuted as untrue.