Kremlin does not rule out revision of Minsk agreements, but on condition that Russia is "mediator"

The Kremlin did not rule out the possibility of going beyond the Minsk agreements in the process of resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. This was announced by Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kozak in an interview with the Politique internationale French magazine.

At the same time, the Russian official once again stated that the Russian Federation considered itself not a party to the conflict, but a mediator.

"Moscow's position on the DNR and LNR remains unchanged. Ukraine and Donbas should resolve their conflict peacefully. The Russian Federation will patiently and persistently contribute to this and support any peace agreements between the parties, even if it is an agreed initiative (of Ukraine and the puppet authorities of CADLO - OstroV) to go beyond the Minsk agreements", - D.Kozak stated.

As previously reported, Russia does not comply with the main provisions of the protocol signed in Minsk on September 5, 2014. In particular, the Minsk Protocol provides for an immediate bilateral cessation of the use of weapons, permanent monitoring on the Ukrainian-Russian state border and verification by the OSCE with the creation of a security zone in the border areas of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, withdrawal of illegal armed formations and military equipment, as well as militants and mercenaries, from the territory of Ukraine. Instead, Russia on a permanent basis supports the occupation authorities of Donbas with weapons, ammunition, military equipment and personnel. Russia is also categorically opposed to monitoring the section of the state border uncontrolled by Ukraine, through which convoys of military equipment and armed Russian troops regularly enter the occupied Donbas. Russian officers under cover and under fictitious names actually lead all the divisions of the so-called "people's militias of the republics". It was the invasion of the regular armed forces of the Russian Federation in 2014 and 2015 that prevented the complete elimination of the "DNR/LNR" bandit formations. Many politicians in Russia do not hide this fact, calling the intervention against Ukraine "the north wind".

The joint statement by 46 UN countries on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution on the territorial integrity of Ukraine maintains that Russia is a party to the conflict in the Donbas, and not a mediator.