Addressing Russia’s populace and, implicitly, Ukraine in his annual phone-in dialogue (see Part One in EDM, April 23), Russian President Vladimir Putin torpedoed the Minsk Two agreement beyond repair: “I say outright and unequivocally: there are no Russian forces in Ukraine” (Kremlin.ru, April 17).
Quite apart from the United States’ and North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intelligence consistently proving Russia’s military deployments in Ukraine’s east (one new operative term is “combined Russian-separatist forces”), Putin’s brazen denial is tantamount to saying “no deal” under Minsk Two.
Indeed, it was Moscow who designed the February 12 agreement and the ensuing “Minsk process” basically as …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation