Russia 'Got Long Way To Go' For Sanctions Ease - U.S. Ambassador

What You Need To Know:

✓ “The way for Russia to achieve relaxation of sanctions is the full and complete implementation of the Minsk Agreement. They’ve got a long way to go;”

 ✓ “The Minsk Agreement makes very clear that Russia is a party to this conflict and that Russia has an obligation to restore Ukrainian control over the internationally recognized border an all of Ukrainian territory;”

✓ Pyatt says that that the United States would like to see the implementation of Minsk happen as quickly as possible, but understands that it will take time;

✓ “There was agreement on all the leaders including Mr. Putin on having a police mission and we certainly agree that some kind of security presence is going to be necessary in order to allow the kind of OSCE standard elections that the Minsk Agreements call for.”

Following the release of jailed Ukrainian Pilot Nadiya Savchenko, sanctions imposed on Russia by G7 member-states were not lifted. According to Geoffrey Pyatt, the United Sates Ambassador to Ukraine, “the way for Russia to achieve relaxation of sanctions is the full and complete implementation of the Minsk Agreement. They’ve got a long way to go.” This is message was clearly shared by Europe and the United States, he asserts.

“The Minsk Agreement makes very clear that Russia is a party to this conflict and that Russia has an obligation to restore Ukrainian control over the internationally recognized border an all of Ukrainian territory,” says Pyatt on the importance on sticking to the Minsk Agreement and not configuring it at this point in time. He adds that there is a lot of value in it for Ukraine and that the Normandy format should not be substituted either: “That’s how you avoid a frozen conflict; you get the separatists out, you get the Russians out , you get Russian troops and equipment out.”

Pyatt says that that the United States would like to see the implementation of Minsk happen as quickly as possible, but understands that it will take time. He says that a full and complete ceasefire is a priority, and that the elections in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk will require many steps. Pyatt is however encouraged by a recent readout made by Bankova after President Poroshenko’s Normandy phone call: “There was agreement on all the leaders including Mr. Putin on having a police mission and we certainly agree that some kind of security presence is going to be necessary in order to allow the kind of OSCE standard elections that the Minsk Agreements call for.”

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk spoke to Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine on May 29th, 2016 in Lviv.