MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday told his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, that attempts by Paris and Berlin to assist the Ukrainian authorities in their attempts to undermine the Minsk protocol were unacceptable, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The top Russian and French diplomats discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine during a phone conversation on Thursday.
"The ministers also discussed the situation with the implementation of the decisions of the Normandy Format leaders' summit held on December 9, 2019, in Paris. The Russian side reaffirmed the need for the conscientious implementation of these decisions in order to achieve a settlement in southeastern Ukraine based on the Minsk package of measures of February 12, 2015. Lavrov noted the unacceptability of attempts by Paris and Berlin to cover up the authorities in Kiev in their desire to undermine the Minsk agreements," the foreign ministry said.
The ministry added that Lavrov and Le Drian had agreed to continue interactions regarding foreign policy issues between Russia and France.
In February 2015, leaders of the so-called Normandy Four � Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany � held talks in Minsk that resulted in adopting agreements aimed at halting the war in Donbas and a long-term political settlement of the conflict. During a Normandy Format summit in late 2019, all sides agreed that the Minsk agreements remain the basis for the resolution of the crisis.
However, earlier in November, the head of the Kiev delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, proposed a new plan on Donbas settlement that calls for demilitarizing the region and giving Kiev control over the state border with Russia. According to the Kremlin, Ukraine's new plan goes sideways with the Minsk protocol. In addition, Moscow also criticized a recent joint statement by Paris and Berlin that commended Kiev's actions regarding the Donbas conflict.
