As Peskov told Rossiya 1 channel, participants in those arrangements in 2014 and 2015 brushed aside Moscow’s approaches on the pressing need to fulfill commitments made in Minsk to stop the war in Donbas. Russian President Vladimir Putin and many other high-ranking representatives raised it at the time, but the West, and specifically the Ukrainian authorities, did not want to comply what was agreed with, Peskov recalled.

Following the Ukraine´s 2014 coup, mass protests against Kiev’s new course started off in the east of the country.

In response, Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation in Donbas mid-April 2014, which included the use of aircraft and massive shelling of residential areas.

Minsk agreements, reached in 2014-2015, were supposed to become the basis for the settlement in Donbas. They were signed by the parties under mediation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia, Germany and France.

Pll/rgh/gfa.