Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked on Russian television Nov. 21 as to the unusual step of publishing the diplomatic correspondence of the Russian, French and German diplomats involved in the “Normandy Four” process for resolving the coup in 2014 in Ukraine; the four being Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. He admitted that the decision to do so was, indeed, unconventional—yet it was brilliant. TASS quoted him that: “What is happening now in world diplomacy has never happened before, so, there has been much deceit. [We were] desperate to explain anything, and amid these public accusations of Moscow, such a brilliant step was taken.” Admitting that it wasn’t traditional for diplomacy, he explained: “But on the other hand, an unconventionally crafty situation probably requires unconventional decisive actions.”
On Nov. 17, the Foreign Ministry issued the following statement: “As of late, Russia’s position, its role in the settlement of the internal Ukrainian conflict and approaches to holding a Normandy format ministerial meeting have been distorted. In order to prevent further speculations, the Foreign Ministry has decided to bring out the primary sources and publish the diplomatic correspondence between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.” The statement included a link to 16 pages of the relevant correspondence: https://www.mid.ru/documents/10180/4944950/%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F+%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0_eng.pdf/59c33457-0f7a-43f1-bbe2-028fe9391f4e
