Kremlin Wants Ukraine's President To Honor Obligations Under Minsk Agreements - Spokesman

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2020) Russia would prefer that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy implement his country's commitments under the Minsk Agreements, whereas there is no need to call Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, commenting on a confrontation between Zelenskyy and Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia's Chechnya.

This past Sunday, Kadyrov demanded that Zelenskyy, a former comedian, reiterate apologies he had voiced in a 2018 interview over including a recording of the Chechnya head crying after a prayer in a comedy video. The Chechen president also accused Zelenskyy of having failed to keep his pre-election promise of peace and urged him to call Putin to proclaim "the end of war in eastern Ukraine."

"I will not comment on anything related to comedy ... As for the civil war, what takes place in Ukraine is an internal Ukrainian conflict. You know that a civil war took place there. It is frozen at the moment, but the situation is still extremely tense. Of course, we would prefer that President Zelenskyy implement Ukraine's obligations under the Minsk Agreements," Peskov said at a briefing.

The spokesman further emphasized that "calling Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] was not at all necessary" and that "the most important thing was to end the war."

The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014, when the army launched an offensive against the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, referred to together as Donbas after they proclaimed independence from Kiev. Their decision came in response to what they considered to have been a coup in Kiev that toppled the old government in February of that year.

In February of 2015, a landmark agreement on peace in eastern Ukraine was signed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, hence the name. It was negotiated by the Normandy quartet, comprised of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. The agreement stipulated a sequence of measures to be taken by Ukraine and the breakaway regions � including an immediate ceasefire and the release of prisoners � to pave the way for sustainable peace.