"Russia constantly violates international law, constantly threatens to the NATO members, for instance by incursions into the airspace. And Russia began to violate the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," said Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk in his statement for the conference of the European Policy Centre on Tuesday, 16 December, in the framework of the working visit to Brussels.

The PM of Ukraine stressed that an issue of deployment of nuclear weapons in Crimea "is another sign that there is a conflict not just between Ukraine and Russia”, “It is a challenge for the entire world, hence the world must respond using all possible means and methods to prevent Russia from putting the nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory, as Crimea is Ukraine's territory".

He reminded that back in 1994 Ukraine had renounced its nuclear arsenal by signing “the unfortunate Budapest Memorandum”, “Therefore, the Ukrainian territory is forbidden to place any nuclear weapons on."

The Prime Minister of Ukraine also said that there had been several attempts to reach peaceful understandings with Russia: in Geneva, then in Normandy and in Minsk, "The only deal we have - the Minsk deal that was signed and supported by Russia. And, in fact, President Putin backed an idea of the Minsk agreement and in the aftermath refused to comply with it".

"We urge the Russian Federation to immediately execute the Minsk agreement. And the Minsk agreement is not a menu. All 12 points must be followed," he emphasized and added that the first step is to introduce control over the border between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, "It is crucial to seal the border, otherwise all the efforts to de-escalate the situation in the East of Ukraine won’t make any sense. The basic prerequisite is to seal the border and have a real truce. After that Putin must sign a decree to withdraw its troops and FSB agents and to stop sending in the Russian-led terrorists, who based in the East of Ukraine.

"These are the prerequisites how to achieve de-escalating of the situation and certain stability, even if it is fragile. But now we are too far from such stability," said Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The Prime Minister accentuated that "it is the Russian Federation and the Russian President on which depends whether they want peace or war”, "This war is not only in Ukraine. Ukraine is for Russia as a battle field against the West, against the EU, the NATO member states, against international law and order."