Russia Not Interested In Holding Normandy Four Meetings For Their Own Sake - Lavrov

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2021) Moscow is not interested in holding Normandy Format meetings as an end in themselves and wants confirmation that the decisions taken at the previous summit are being implemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Defense Ministry Boarding school for Girls, the minister described how France and Germany are trying to convince Russia to have another summit simply because "[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy really wants it."

"We do not need a meeting for the sake of a meeting. We need a meeting that will at least confirm the implementation of the last summit in the Normandy format, which took place in Paris almost two years ago, in December 2019. Ukraine refuses to implement everything that was written down there, and everyone knows it," Lavrov said.

In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and its neighboring Luhansk People's Republic after they proclaimed independence from Ukraine and refused to recognize the new central government, which came to power after what they considered to be a coup. The resolution of the conflict has been discussed in various formats, including through the so-called Normandy Group involving Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine.

�On December 9, 2019, the group adopted a joint communique in Paris at their first summit in three years, also reaching an agreement to meet in Berlin in four months to continue efforts toward peace in Donbas. The communique affirmed the Minsk accords as the basis for the crisis settlement, envisioned the separation of forces in three new locations across Donbas, and called for a ceasefire.