"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."