Russia and West clash over Ukraine at Security Council meeting ahead of war anniversary
Russia is accusing the West of sabotaging agreements that would have prevented the war in Ukraine – but the U.S. and its allies put the blame squarely on Moscow, saying there is no escaping that President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia accused the West on Monday of sabotaging agreements that would have prevented the war in Ukraine – but the U.S. and its allies put the blame squarely on Moscow, saying there is no escaping that President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of its smaller neighbor.
Days before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia again put the cause of the war down to the failure to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements, which he blamed on “Kyiv’s sabotage” supported by the West.
The agreements aimed to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists that flared in April 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for the separatists in the mostly Russian-speaking industrial east called Donbas.
At Monday’s Security Council meeting that Russia called on the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Minsk peace plan brokered by France and Germany, Nebenzia called claims by Ukraine and Western nations that Russia refused to implement the agreements “absolutely baseless.”
