Poroshenko Says Ukraine Has Fulfilled Minsk Agreements

Source: THE MOSCOWTIMES

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on Monday that Kiev has fully implemented the Minsk agreements, the RBC news agency reported.
The Ukrainian side has fulfilled 95 percent of the political obligations and 100 percent of the security requirements in the agreements, Poroshenko was quoted as saying by Interfax Ukraine during a news conference which followed his talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Sanctions against Russia were prolonged this month by EU leaders until January 2017 as Moscow is considered guilty of failing to comply with the terms of the agreements.
The Russian authorities claim that Ukraine is violating the agreements.

“It is obvious for everyone that Kiev does not want and is not going to implement the Minsk agreements,” the head of President Vladimir Putin’s administration Sergei Ivanov said last month in a television interview.
Putin held phone talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande last week, during which he insisted that Kiev is escalating the conflict in southeast Ukraine by performing “provocative” military operations.
During the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin said that Ukraine had failed to amend its constitution and to grant special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk peoples’ republics — one of the most crucial elements of the agreements.
Over the last few days, Ukrainian militants have reportedly been boosting their heavy weaponry, such as tanks and artillery, in the Donbass region. However, the Ukrainian army have claimed that it is the separatists who are violating the cease-fire treaty.
Russian Foreign Ministry representatives and Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada speaker Andrei Parubiy exchanged accusations last week, blaming each other for extending their military operations in the Donbass.
Since the beginning of the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that erupted in April 2014, Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of supporting Donbass separatists, but Russian authorities have denied these allegations.
More than 9,000 civilians and militants have been killed during the fighting that subsided in April last year, but skirmishes continue in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.