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Kyiv Can’t Keep ‘Playing the Fool’ in Skirting Minsk Obligations – Lavrov

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Both Germany and France understand that Ukraine cannot “play the fool” for very long in regard to fulfilling the Minsk agreements on Ukrainian reconciliation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“Ukraine is currently in an ‘incredible’ political and economic situation of complete disorder. But from the point of view of the Minsk agreements, the less they try to fulfill them, the longer sanctions will remain against Russia, and they say this freely. Everyone understands the abnormality of this, especially the Germans and French, who are in direct contact with the participants of the negotiations of the so-called Normandy format, where details are scrupulously reviewed [regarding] who needs to be doing what, and what has and hasn’t been done in the development of these points that are written in the Minsk agreements. There’s already an understanding that ‘playing the fool’ cannot last for long,” Lavrov said during an interview with Russia’s Moskovsky Komsomolets daily. 

In February 2015, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France brokered the Minsk peace deal, later signed by representatives of Kyiv and the Donbass independence supporters.

The Minsk agreements stipulate a ceasefire, a weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, constitutional reforms to decentralize power in the country, and the granting of a special status to the Donbass region.