President Petro Poroshenko is confident that sanctions will remain a powerful mechanism that makes Russia take part in negotiations on the settlement of the situation in Donbas and lead to the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.
"It is a powerful motivation for Russians to sit down at the negotiating table and fulfill their obligations. First of all - security component of the Minsk agreements: cease-fire, withdrawal of artillery, heavy armament, liberation of hostages and access to all occupied territories for the OSCE SMM," he was quoted as telling journalists in Odesa on his official website.
"We insist on that and we hope that we will achieve that," the president added.
"Sanctions are applied because the world recognizes that Russia doesn't fulfill the undertaken commitments," Petro Poroshenko stressed and thanked the EU leaders for unilateral approval of the decision on prolongation of sanctions. He also expressed gratitude to USA and other countries for synchronous continuation of sanctions.
The president underscored the efficiency of the mechanism of sanctions and once again emphasized that the situation on the frontline would be much worse if it wasn’t for sanctions. "Curbing aggression is the result of joint and harmonized actions of Ukraine, its Armed Forces and the world imposing sanctions," he said.
The president noted that further actions in the Normandy format would be coordinated at the Ukraine-NATO Summit in Warsaw.
According to Poroshenko, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and a deputy head of the presidential administration, Kostyantyn Yeliseyev, will make a visit to Europe in the coming days in order to hold negotiations on the next possible meeting in the Normandy format.