Peskov calls Minks agreements a scam to persecute Russian-speakers
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The Minsk Agreements were a shell game and a bid to persecute the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, said the Kremlin's spokesperson.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at a news conference following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 16, 2022 (Reuters)
In an interview with the Rossiya 1 broadcaster, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the Minsk Agreements a "shell game" and a scam that gave way for Ukraine to persecute Russians living in Ukraine.
"Yes, as for the Minsk agreements, it was a shell game with us. We were deceived. And it turned the situation for the worse. It encouraged the Kiev regime in many ways; it let them loose to massacre Russians in their country, and it drew the special military operation closer," he said.
Read more: US, albeit covertly, wants Kiev to show interest in talks with Russia
What supports Peskov's argument is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitting back in February that he never had the intention to implement the Minsk Agreements.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who helped negotiate the agreement at the time, said in an interview back in December: "The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine."
That same month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was hoping for peace agreements back when it signed the Minsk Agreements in 2014, but it was fooled. "We all endured, endured, endured and hoped for some kind of peace agreement, but now it turns out that we were simply fooled," Putin told reporters.
"After the revelations of [ex-German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, [ex-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko, and other politicians about the true goals of the Minsk agreements, it became obvious to everyone that Russia was not the source of the conflict in Ukraine," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said a day before Putin's statement.
Former French president Francois Hollande jumped on the same wagon and said back in January, a month later: “Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture… It is the merit of the Minsk Agreements to have given the Ukrainian Army this opportunity,”
Read next: Minsk agreement under the microscope; intentions exposed: Global Times
In an interview in February, Zelensky said: "As for Minsk as a whole, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: we will not be able to implement it like that," adding that he said the same thing to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the first and last meeting with him in the Normandy format in 2019.
"I told him the same thing as the other two. They were surprised and replied: 'If we knew in advance that you would change the meaning of our meeting, then there would be problems even before the summit,'" the Ukrainian president added.
Zelensnky said Kiev used the agreement only for the exchange of prisoners of war.
