On 17 November 2020, Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement of their official representative referring to a recent Joint Statement by the French and German Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the settlement of the conflict in Donbas.

The Joint Statement welcomed Ukraine’s compliance with the conclusions of the Normandy-format Summit held in Paris on 9 December 2019, pointing out that, as per agreement, Ukraine did take steps to improve the conditions at the crossing points in the Dontsk and Luhansk regions before winter would set, and to ease the hardships of civilians by opening the crossing points of "Zolote" and "Shchastya" in the Luhansk region on 10 November 2020, as previously planned.

Such an assessment by the French and German Foreign Ministers of Ukraine's effort to implement the Minsk Agreements, including the decisions reached at the level of Heads of State in the "Norman Format", evoked a flurry of emotions, unfounded criticism and manipulative accusations on behalf of Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Their allegations have nothing to do with reality and are an unsuccessful attempt to justify the continuation of Russia’s aggressive policy towards Ukraine, as well as Russia’s unwillingness to take at least minimal steps to relieve the humanitarian situation or facilitate unhindered contacts between Ukrainian citizens on both sides of the line of contact.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine categorically rejects all the accusations made by the official representative of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia regarding Ukraine’s attempts to "disavow the Minsk Agreements".

A Draft Plan of Joint Steps by the Trilateral Contact Group to Implement the Minsk Agreements, prepared by Head of Ukraine’s Delegation at the TCG Leonid Kravchuk, provides practical proposals as to a full settlement of the conflict, demilitarization of the temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and the creation of preconditions   for local elections in Donbas, which corespondscorresponds fully with the letter and spirit of the 2015 Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

As regards the subject of opening crossing points in the Joint Forces Operation area, the newly opened "Shchastya" crossing point began operation on 10 November 2020, where an Administrative Services Center, a bank branch, and a baby care room are now available.

The "Shchastya" crossing point Administrative Services Center provides more than 80 services, thus helping solve a variety of humanitarian problems of our citizens, who live in the temporarily occupied territories.

We also keep on improving services for civilians at the "Zolote" crossing point.

We would like to stress that illegal armed groups continue to hamper citizens from freely crossing the contact line. There are also cases of hampering the free movement of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission observers.

With an active role of Germany and France in the Normandy Format, Ukraine will continue to make every effort necessary to settle the conflict peacefully and to implement the agreements reached in the framework of the Normandy Format and the Trilateral Contact Group.