Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, made clear in an interview with The Associated Press yesterday that the Kiev regime has no intention of complying with the Minsk agreements on the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region. “The fulfillment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s destruction,” Danilov said. “When they were signed under the Russian gun barrel — and the Germans and the French watched — it was already clear for all rational people that it’s impossible to implement those documents.”
Danilov warned the West against pressuring Ukraine into fulfilling the Minsk deal, claiming that it would provoke dangerous instability. “If they insist on the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements as they are, it will be very dangerous for our country,” he said. “If the society doesn’t accept those agreements, it could lead to a very difficult internal situation, and Russia counts on that.”
He also argued that if Ukraine honors the deal, it will allow Russia to demand the lifting of Western sanctions that were contingent on progress in implementing the Minsk agreement. Danilov called for negotiating a new document that could be realistically implemented, adding that it should force “Putin to simply pull his troops and tanks back.”
Otherwise, Danilov agreed with Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov that the likelihood of an “imminent” Russian invasion is low. He said that about 120,000 Russian troops are concentrated near Ukraine and that Moscow may stage provocations “at any moment,” but he argued that launching a full-fledged invasion would require massive preparations that would be easily spotted. “The preparatory period that will be noticed by the entire world could take from three to seven days,” Danilov said. “We aren’t seeing it yet. We clearly understand what’s going on and we are calmly preparing for it.”
