REUTERS

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Volodymyr Yelchenko has called on the international community to impose new targeted sanctions on Russia to make it implement the Minsk peace agreements on Donbas.

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"Doesn't the Russian leadership realize that its actions totally disrupt the Minsk agreements? Doesn't Russia realize what kind of a ticking time bomb it has planted? Doesn't Russia realize its political responsibility for undermining the process of peaceful settlement in the eastern part of Ukrainian Donbas? I think the Kremlin realizes all this very well but does it on purpose – implementation of the said agreements was never the intention of the Russian side," he said at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) briefing titled: "Letter Ukraine PR (S/2014/136)" on April 25.

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According to Yelchenko, destabilization and fragmentation of Ukraine was a crystal-clear intent behind every move during the last five years.

"But Russia will bear responsibility. That is why reinforcing the international pressure on the Kremlin, including new targeted sanctions against the aggressor state, should be our common task," he said.

"This is the way to bring Russia back into the path of implementation of its obligations under the Minsk agreements. This is the way to peaceful settlement in the eastern Donbas," Yelchenko added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 24 signed a decree simplifying the procedure to grant Russian citizenship to people living in Russian-occupied Donbas, eastern Ukraine.