Russia Accused Ukraine of Degraded Relations

After the summit of the Normandy Four in December 2019, there has been no progress in relations between the countries, Moscow states. Russia declared the degradation of relations with Ukraine due to the fault of Kiev. This is stated in the review of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Russia's foreign policy and diplomatic activities in 2020, published on Thursday, March 25. “Russian-Ukrainian relations continued to degrade. The progress in resolving a number of bilateral problems that emerged after the meeting of the presidents of the two countries on the sidelines of the Normandy format summit in Paris on December 9, 2019 did not gain momentum. The Kiev authorities continued their confrontation policy, deliberately destroying the still remaining ties with Russia, including by denouncing bilateral agreements in various fields," the statement reads. The document also notes a drop in trade between the countries by 13.4%, up to $ 9.9 billion. The Russian Foreign Ministry calls the Contact Group's decision on additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire as an important event in the Donbas settlement. "The indefinite ceasefire introduced since the end of July contributed to the de-escalation of tensions in Donbas. At the same time, due to Kiev's stance, which continued to stubbornly refuse to implement the Minsk agreements and openly called for their revision, no progress on other aspects of the settlement, primarily in the political sphere, was made," the document reads. As you know, recently Ukraine has been trying to organize a meeting of the Normandy format leaders, but Russia sees no point in this and refuses. Both sides offer new proposals in negotiations and settlement in Donbas, but they cannot come to a consensus.