“Putin facilitated a trap, a political trap for himself in Russia. There is no good solution for Putin. If he says we decided to leave Donetsk and Luhansk, he is politically dead in Russia. If he goes offensive against Ukrainian army, trying to grab more land of independent country in Donetsk and Luhansk, he is dead in the world,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at the 12^th YES Annual Meeting on Saturday, September 12.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined that president Putin “personally ordered to deploy up to 40,000 troops, including Russian regular troops in Donetsk and Luhansk.”

The PM noted that Russia was offered a number of ways to retreat, which he never accepted

Answering the question on the Minsk agreements, Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized: “We had two options on this Minsk deal: bad and worse. The worse option – not to have the Minsk deal, bad is to sign Minsk. I was and I am skeptical about this deal, but I do understand that this is the only deal we have on the table.”

Arseniy Yatsenyuk reminded that the Minsk deal was based on a number of key pillars: to impose real ceasefire, to pull back Russian forces and to seal the border.

“We are ready to have free and fair elections in Donetsk and Luhansk only in case if they meet all the OSCE/ODIHR criteria. I can hardly imagine the way the OSCE to confirm that we can easily hold free and fair elections under the barrel of the gun of Russian Kalashnikov at every polling station,” the PM pointed out.

“There is no easy solution. We will never make any kind of concessions, for example, like to make Ukraine a federal state. No. This is the way how to dismantle Ukraine. This is the action plan of Putin,” he highlighted.

“Ukraine executed everything what is on our side, Ukraine is and was whiter that white in implementing the Minsk deal. We are eager to provide peace and stability, and to deescalate the situation,” the PM stressed.

“But the key thing is that everything is in the hands of president Putin. If he wants really to deescalate the situation, he is to get out of Ukraine. If no, we are to act in concert with the global community, to press on him,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined.