Arseniy Yatsenyuk in an interview with TSN. Tyzhden: The world has no right to forget about the Russian aggression. Russia must pay the price

“We are for establishing peace. But we are also for the one who disturbed peace, violated the UN Charter, all bilateral and multilateral agreements, to pay the price,” said Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk in an interview with the program “TSN. Tyzhden” on channel “1+1”.

According to the Head of the Government, ceasefire is needed to preserve life, to reposition, to become stronger. However, in order to achieve real truce, there are three basic conditions: “First - none shoots. Second - Putin withdraws his mercenaries, his army and his machinery. And third - Ukraine regains complete control over the state border”.

“Whether I believe the Russian Federation and its President? Absolutely not. Has President Putin changed his plans? Under no circumstances. His plan is to return Ukraine under Russia's sphere of influence, in any form. Either to grab it by military, political [tools – ed.] or to destroy the statehood,” he said.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to create on the territory of Luhansk and Donetsk regions something like Abkhazia, Ossetia, Transnistria”: ”This is the territory that he wants to control, and through his mercenaries to drink blood from Ukraine.”

He reminded that the entire infrastructure has been already destroyed in Donbas: “We have reached to a point that we have problems with the coal, as they put the mines in the sights of their missiles and tanks, we can't extract coal. Blew up the railroad network, destroyed the energy sector.”

“Yes, these criminals have wrecked not only the energy sector and industry – they even destroyed universities, educational infrastructure,” - said the Head of Government.

Answering the question about a possible declaration of martial rule in the country, Arseniy Yatsenyuk accentuated: “If there's a peace plan, the peace plan is supported by the EU and the United States and the peace plan is implemented by Russia, of course, martial rule is unnecessary. But if this truce end the way all previous truce variants ended, and not just in Ukraine, there doesn’t exist another choice”.

The main advantage of declaration of martial rule, he said, is that the entire country switches to the military sphere exceptionally, “starting from civil defence and ending with the fact that the military command receives full power on the territory of Ukraine: “I mean it is war. The country is at war. Certainly, it is not legally shaped, but this is war.”

“Disadvantage is our western partners will say that this is wrong, because we have blocked ourselves any channels for negotiations, for a peace plan to resolve this situation through non-military tools,” said the Head of Government.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed that we cannot allow the situation, "that there is a peace plan, none shoots, everything calmed down, and the world returns to the “business as usual” state of affairs, and forgot everything as other conflicts”: "We cannot let this happen. The world has no right to forget about the Russian aggression. Russia must pay the price. Yes, we are for attaining peace. But we are for the one who disturbed peace, the one who has violated the UN Charter, all possible and impossible bilateral and multilateral agreements, should pay the price. And it is the Russian Federation”.