Interior Minister of Ukraine Arsen Avakov believes that the Minsk agreements are no longer working now, and there is a need to adopt a number of agreements aimed at resolving the situation in Donbas.
“I believe that the Minsk agreements are dead and it’s no longer worth talking about. It is necessary to pay tribute to the fact that the Minsk agreements were necessary as a mechanism for a cease-fire regime,” he said during the National Expert Forum “Ukraine: In Pursuance of Balance” in Kyiv on Nov. 28.
At one time, the Minsk Agreements came in handy and produced positive results, such as a reduction in casualties among Ukrainian soldiers, the minister said.
“Is it possible to implement the Minsk Agreements as a real mechanism for achieving peace and resolving the conflict? I am firmly convinced that it is impossible, especially in the manner in which the Russian Federation is trying to interpret these accords,” he said.
There is a need for “Vienna, Paris or any other agreements that would offer an absolutely clear interpretation of the main principles that were set out and are being discussed by all politicians today,” he said.
“The first principle is the full withdrawal of all Russian military units from Ukraine’s territory, control on Ukraine’s border jointly with peacekeepers, as was proposed by [Ukrainian] President [Petro] Poroshenko, the introduction of Ukraine’s judicial authorities to the currently occupied Donbas and Crimea, and the holding of elections. As a politician, I am telling you that it doesn’t matter to me at all who wins these elections … What is far more important is that we restore the rule of law,” Avakov said.
“Peacekeepers will be stationed on Ukraine’s internationally recognized border together with Ukrainian forces. All Russian units will leave the territory of Ukraine and will take these semi-gangster organizations with them… Judicial authorities will be put in place there: there won’t be any militants, any additional courts of theirs, and all processes will take place exclusively within the legislative and judicial framework of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian interior minister said.
If such measures are put into practice, the time will come for small steps, when each step should prove to Ukrainian citizens living in Donbas that “they’d be better off sticking with Ukraine than with the occupation regime,” Avakov said.
This path will require enormous financial contributions -“20 billion to 30 billion, and many years, 5-10 years, will be needed to move along this path of recovery,” he said.
Russia’s political and military leadership has always categorically denied claims by Kyiv and the West that Russian regular troops are allegedly present in eastern Ukraine.
