Lhe Kremlin reported Wednesday, February 9, the first “positive signals”, after the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine, concerning 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 solely on the basis of the Minsk agreements, that’s a plus,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“But we didn’t hear (Ukrainian) President Volodymyr Zelensky say he was ready to deal with it quickly,” he said. Moscow accuses Ukraine of refusing to apply the Minsk agreements of 2015, which must lead to the end of the war in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 13,000 people in eight years, according to the UN. Russia is, despite its denials, widely seen as the instigator of the conflict by supporting the separatists militarily and politically.
Vladimir Putin has promised that he will not “be the cause of the escalation”
Dmitri Peskov reacted to the remarks of President Zelensky, who received his French counterpart the day before. This visit followed negotiations on Monday between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin on the Russian-Western crisis around Ukraine and the war in the east of the country. This conflict fuels the current Russian-Western tensions and the risk of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, with tens of thousands of Russian soldiers camping on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The political advisers of the Ukrainian, Russian, French and German leaders are due to meet in Berlin on Thursday to try to find ways to relaunch the peace process in Donbass and to discuss the holding of a possible summit of the leaders of the four countries. . After meeting Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron assured from Ukraine that the Russian president had promised not to be “at the origin of the escalation”.
