Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the statement by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Minsk agreements were signed in order to give Ukraine time to prepare for a military confrontation with Russia could be used for trials within the tribunal. She said this at a briefing on December 8.

“Now they talk a lot about legal assessments of what is happening around Ukraine, some tribunals, and so on in all sorts of ways. But this is a specific application for the tribunal, ”said Zakharova.

According to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Merkel's words are evidence of a person who directly stated that everything done in 2014-2015 was supposed to "take the world community's views away from real problems, play for time, pump up the Kyiv regime with weapons and lead the matter to a big conflict. ".

Earlier, Angela Merkel, in an interview with Die Zeit, said that the Minsk agreements were signed to give Ukraine time, to help it become stronger. The ex-chancellor added that all the countries participating in Minsk understood that the conflict in Ukraine was only suspended, but the problem itself was not resolved.

Merkel also expressed the opinion that during the period of the agreements, the NATO countries could provide assistance to Ukraine in the amount in which they do it now.