In a lengthy interview with a Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alluded to the six-point ceasefire agreement brokered by Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of France and holder of the EU rotating presidency, in August 2008 between Tbilisi and Moscow. He implied that the agreement was not, in fact, signed “but only discussed.”
FM Lavrov noted the ceasefire deal agreed by President Sarkozy in Moscow began with a preamble that saying that Russia and France, seeking normalization of the situation in South Caucasus, “offer the following to Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia: a ceasefire…”. Lavrov said, then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili did not sign the document, or, rather signed only after “deleting [these] key provisions from it.”
“Since then, the West has been demanding from us to fulfill these agreements,” FM Lavrov added, supposedly implying that no binding agreement exists between Georgia and Russia.
FM Lavrov was speaking about the differences between the current situation in Donbas and the 2008 situation in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia.
He went on to infer that the recognition of the two Georgian provinces as independent states by Russia was linked to the absence of an agreement concerning their future, while in Donetsk, the so-called “Minsk document” signed by Ukraine foresees a specific set of measures for resolving the crisis, short of recognition.
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