Kuleba cites Russia’s breaches of agreements reached at int’l talks

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy wrote about this on X (formerly Twitter), Ukrinform reports.

"The Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Russia agreed to “respect independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine” as well as “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. Breached by Russia invading Crimea in 2014," the minister wrote, citing this as a first example.

Next, the head of the MFA mentioned the Russo-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997, in which Russia agreed to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine; the Istanbul summit of the OSCE in 1999, in which Russia undertook to withdraw its troops from Transnistria in Moldova and from Georgia by the end of 2002 "which never happened". Kuleba also mentioned the 2008 ceasefire agreement with Georgia, when Russia agreed to the pull its troops to the line prior to the start of hostilities, but none of that happened.

“The Ilovaysk ‘Green Corridor’ in August 2014 and other ‘humanitarian’ death corridors. Russia pledged to let Ukrainian forces leave the encircled town of Ilovaysk in the east of Ukraine, but instead opened fire and killed 366 Ukrainian troops. In the following years, Russia attacked numerous humanitarian corridors in Syria,” Kuleba emphasized.

“The ‘Minsk’ agreements of 2014 and 2015. Russia agreed to cease the fire in the east of Ukraine. There had been 200 rounds of talks and 20 attempts to enforce a ceasefire, all of which the Russian side promptly violated. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” he added.

The minister also recalled Russia's unilateral withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative of 2022, noting that he only mentioned agreements on solving specific problems and conflicts.

“I am not mentioning almost 400 international treaties that Russia has breached since 2014. There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words "Russia" and "negotiations" in the same phrase,” the top diplomat noted.

Kuleba referred to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as a habitual liar who promised international leaders not to attack Ukraine days before his February 2022 invasion. According to him, Russian tactics have remained consistent in its many wars over the past three decades: "kill, grab, lie, and deny."

“Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2023 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022?” the minister wrote, concluding the statement.

As reported earlier, the Ukrainian President's Office says any negotiations with the Russian Federation are deemed impossible because Russia’s only objective is Ukraine’s capitulation, regardless of what is meant by “negotiations”.