DISINFO: Ukraine refuses to observe a truce in Donbas

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the war in Ukraine. Ukraine has never claimed that it does not want to implement the Minsk agreements. On the contrary, implementation of the agreements remains one of the key priorities of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the beginning of June 2020, during a working visit to Germany by the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak discussed the security and humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine with Germany's Federal Minister of Defence Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Mr Yermak stressed that in order to accelerate progress towards peace, it is necessary, first of all, to ensure the implementation of the agreements reached by the leaders of the Normandy format countries at the December summit in Paris, in particular, to ensure full and comprehensive implementation of the ceasefire. "The cessation of shelling is a basic condition for further disengagement of forces and demining," the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine said. After the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Ukrainian side proposed to hold the negotiations conducted by the Trilateral Contact Group in video format. Since 2014, negotiations with Russia to resolve the conflict in the Donbas have been held within the framework of the Normandy Format and the Minsk process. A special Trilateral contact group is working on a peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas. Three parties are involved in this process: representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE. Unofficially, representatives of the "LDNR" factions are also present. The second set of measures to implement the Minsk agreements was signed on 12 February 2015. The first paragraph of the document relates to an immediate ceasefire. Next, it is necessary to withdraw heavy weapons, ensure OSCE monitoring, release prisoners, grant Donbas special status and hold local elections, provide amnesty to the parties involved in the conflict and restore control over the Ukrainian-Russian border in the conflict zone. There are no conditions that the Ukrainian authorities should conduct direct negotiations with the leaders of the "LDNR" factions in the Minsk agreements. Read similar cases alleging that Ukraine does not advance in the implementation of the Minsk agreements under Zelenskyy, that Kyiv does not want to implement the current Minsk agreements, that Ukraine does not want to implement the Minsk agreements because it is controlled by the West, or that Kyiv has not implemented the conditions of "Minsk-2" for five years.