Ukraine will be responsible for its own destruction if it undermines existing peace agreements, a senior Russian diplomat has warned at a UN security council debate on the crisis.
Vasily Nebenzya on Monday derided western claims of a planned Russian attack as “hysterics” and blamed Ukraine for not abiding by the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, which were supposed to end the conflict between the Kyiv government and the Russian-backed separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative at the UN, also blamed western nations for “actively pumping Ukraine full of weapons” which he said would be used against civilians in the east of the country and were “in violation of the Minsk agreements”.
He ended his address to the security council with a warning.
“If our western partners push Kyiv to sabotage the Minsk agreements, something that Ukraine is ... willingly doing, then that might end in the absolute worst way for Ukraine,” Nebenzya said. “And not because somebody has destroyed it, but because it would have destroyed itself and Russia has absolutely nothing to do with this.” » | Julian Borger in Washington and Lorenzo Tondo in Rome | Monday, January 31, 2022
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