According to The Global Times, Western countries have not spent efforts to resolve their differences with the Russian Federation on the crisis in UkraineBEIJING, December 13.
/tass/. The admission of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Western countries initially did not plan to contribute to the implementation of the Minsk agreements indicates that the West has never considered Russia a dialogue partner. This is stated in an article published on Tuesday by the Chinese newspaper Global Times.
"From pushing through the Minsk agreements to fomenting the current conflict between Moscow and Kiev - in all this, the West is openly or secretly trying to exhaust and restrain the country, which it considered an enemy, by delaying. He never really considered Russia a dialogue partner," the article notes.
"Merkel [in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit] actually confessed that Western politicians do not want to admit about the Minsk agreements: they served only as a half-measure that was supposed to buy time for Ukraine and the West, and Western countries have never spent real efforts to resolve their differences with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine," the article says.
"The statement of the ex-Chancellor of Germany tears off the last remaining veils of the "friendly" mask that some Western countries put on in front of Russia. In the eyes of some Western countries, Russia is simply a "stranger" from a diplomatic and political point of view, the authors of the material note.
After the coup d'etat in Ukraine in February 2014, mass protests of those who disagree with the new course of Kiev began in the east of the country, where the Russian-speaking population prevails. In response, the Ukrainian authorities in mid-April of the same year launched a military operation in the Donbass with the use of aviation and massive shelling of residential areas. The Minsk agreements reached in 2014-2015 were supposed to be the basis for a settlement in Donbass. They were signed with the mediation of the OSCE, Russia, Germany and France.
In an interview published on December 7 of this year with the German newspaper Die Zeit, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the conclusion of the Minsk agreements "an attempt to give Ukraine time to become stronger." According to her, "it was clear to everyone" that the conflict was frozen, and the problem was not solved, "but it gave Ukraine invaluable time." She expressed doubt that then NATO countries could provide Kiev with support to the extent that they are doing it now.
