German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Germany would push for an extension of Western sanctions against Russia in December because Moscow had failed to fully implement a Ukraine peace deal brokered in Minsk in 2015.
Germany supports extending sanctions imposed upon Russia because Moscow failed to fulfill its obligations to end its nearly five-year war in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a November 1 visit to Kyiv.
“The Minsk agreement is not being fulfilled and we’re only making inching progress if at all and sometimes we’re going backwards,” Merkel said during a visit to Kiev, where she met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
“So based on the situation we have today, Germany will push for an extension of the sanctions in December too,” she said, adding that among the violations of the Minsk peace deal were elections planned for November 11 in areas controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
