Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday receives at the Kremlin UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, TASS reports.
It was reported earlier, that during his trip to Russia, the UN secretary-general plans to discuss the situation in Ukraine, focusing in particular on Mariupol and the Azovstal plant.
This meeting of the Russian president and the UN secretary-general is the first after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. The most recent face-to-face talks were in January 2020, at the international conference on Libya in Berlin. Earlier in the day, Guterres met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Minsk Agreements were the attempt for peaceful settlement but people in Donbass remained in blockade and under military pressure, Putin told Guterres.
"The entire problem occurred after the coup d’etat performed in Ukraine in 2014 - it can be called as one chooses, have any favors to those committing that, but this is indeed the unconstitutional coup d’etat," the President said. Residents of Crimea and Sevastopol had made the decision on independence and then approached with the request to join in with Russia. Putin compared this decision with the situation in Kosovo, "with the only difference that such decision on sovereignty in Kosovo was made by the parliament, while in Crimea and Sevastopol - at the popular referendum," he noted.
Problems occurred with Ukraine regarding regions in the southeast of the country, where residents of two constituencies disagreed with the coup d’etat and its results and were therefore subjected to very strong pressure, Putin told Guterres, "including with large-scale military operations, use of combat aviation and heavy materiel."
"After the next unsuccessful attempt of Kyiv authorities to settle the problem under military duress, we achieved signing of agreements in Minsk, which are called Minsk Agreements," the head of Russia said.
"This was the attempt of peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbass. However, to our regret, people living there found themselves in blockade during eight years - and Kyiv authorities publicly announced that they had organized blockade of this territory, dared to announce that this was the blockade, although initially had renounced that, and continued military pressure," Putin said.
However, after "Kyiv authorities actually in public, by mouth of top government leaders, announced that they do not intend to perform Minsk Agreements," Russia had to "recognize these states as independent and self-sustained, for the purpose of terminating the genocide of people living on these territories," Putin added.
UN documents, rather than some papers "of a custom design" written by individual countries are fundamental in international affairs, Putin told Guterres.
"Maxims of certain our colleagues when they speak about the world based on rules sound somewhat strange for us," Putin said. "We believe the fundamental rule is the United Nations Charter, other documents approved by this organization, rather than certain papers wrote by somebody as one sees fit and to secure his interests," the head of Russia noted.
Moscow will always support the UN because considers it to be the universal structure, the Russian leader said.
