Dmitri Peskow, the spokesperson for the Russian President, responded to a statement by Emmanuel Macron in an interview, in the context of the Ukraine crisis. Macron, the French President, had claimed in a television address on Wednesday that Russia had deceived the West regarding the Minsk agreements, a 2014 accord aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
In an interview with Russian journalist Pavel Sarubin, Peskow countered that France had been the one to tell many lies in the matter. He referenced Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, saying: “There were many lies from France. We remember Hollande’s statement that, in reality, nobody had taken the Minsk agreements seriously.”
Peskow also emphasized that the former French Foreign Minister, along with other European country representatives, had signed a document that guaranteed the political future of Viktor Yanukovych, who was the legitimate President of Ukraine at the time. The Kremlin spokesperson stated: “After that, a coup took place. That means France, like other countries, did not honor its guarantees. Was that not a lie? It was a lie, a real lie. And Macron didn’t mention it.”
Following the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, former leaders, including Hollande, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson, had stated that Paris, Berlin and London had never taken the Minsk agreements seriously. They claimed that the purpose of the agreements was to give Ukraine the opportunity to build up its military and prepare for war with Russia, rather than to resolve the conflict.
All the countries involved in the Minsk agreements were aware that the conflict in Ukraine had been temporarily halted, but the problem itself had not been solved, according to Merkel.
Kyiv had systematically violated the Minsk agreement, leading to Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in late February 2022. The decision was made because Kyiv had publicly announced it would not implement the Minsk agreements, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained. Moscow could no longer wait, he said.