MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) - The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR and LPR) are unlikely to agree that the Ukrainian-Russian border be enforced while Kyiv is striving to mount military pressure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"Certainly, if there is the desire to prioritize the restoration of the Ukrainian government's control over the entire border between Ukraine and Russia while the combat actions are going on, the sections controlled by the militia should be negotiated with the DPR and LPR," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday.
"As actions are in full swing and as the Ukrainian authorities are making attempts to improve their military position on the ground so as to use it then at the Minsk meeting, I have strong doubts about how the Luhansk and Donetsk representatives can agree to it that control over the border should be treated as the principal point and the precondition for the rest," he said.
"We are witnessing this very attempt on the part of Ukrainian leadership representatives - to condition all the rest by the establishment of control over the border," Lavrov said.
"As long as there is combat and as long as a lot of other issues remain unresolved, this would be unrealistic," he said.
"What counts most in our view is that the Minsk agreements should be implemented, which mention the need to legislatively stipulate special status of the territories in Donbas and provide security guarantees to the governing bodies to be elected there, and they also say about the pardoning of all participants in the events in southeastern Ukraine," Lavrov said.
The Minsk agreements also mention the need for maintaining economic ties between Donbas and the rest of Ukraine, he said.
"Instead of this, we are witnessing an economic blockade, cutting off Donbas, and the establishment of control on the roads leading from Donbas to other Ukrainian territories - in other words, an attempt, to put it bluntly, to strangle these territories economically and socially simultaneously with the attempt to crush them militarily," he said.
"Giving up also the Russian section of the border in these conditions means to cut yourself off from humanitarian aid and allow yourself to be encircled," he said.