Russia’s reluctance to extend the mandate of the OSCE border mission indicates its rejection of the Minsk agreements, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said.
“I personally interpret this as, in fact, Russia’s refusal of the Minsk agreements, because the condition that the OSCE SMM will be there is stipulated by the Minsk agreements (…),” Reznikov said on the air of the Freedom of Speech (Svoboda Slova) program on ICTV on Monday, September 7.
At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the delegation led by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit discussed with partners in the United States the possibility of involving them “in certain platforms for resolving the international armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.”
“This may be a continuation of Minsk, because, unfortunately, there is no other than the logistics platform created by the Normandy format. Minsk – for the sake of agreements on humanitarian issues, economic, ceasefire, etc.,” Reznikov said.
He said that this format should still be maintained as an opportunity for communication.
“We have the Budapest Memorandum, after all, in which the U.S. and the United Kingdom are parties, and France is a party to the Budapest Memorandum, and it allows for consultations. Germany can be invited to such consultations,” Reznikov said.
The Russian Federation reportedly said it would not join the consensus on extending the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission at Hukovo and Donetsk checkpoints on the border with Ukraine.
