Kiev, Western nations bending peace deal: Moscow

Russia says Kiev and its Western allies have twisted a peace deal to end the crisis in east Ukraine which is shortly to go into effect.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday that several official representatives of Ukraine and the Western countries, “the United States in particular, have essentially expressed solidarity with the opinion of radical nationalists in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament).”

Moscow added that they have also started “to distort the contents of the Minsk agreements.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko reached the ceasefire deal in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on February 11-12, after marathon talks.

The negotiating sides agreed on the withdrawal of heavy weapons from Ukraine’s front lines and a ceasefire to begin at 2200 GMT on February 14, midnight Kiev time on February 15.

The Russian Ministry, meanwhile, warned that the Ukrainian government and the West are “putting in doubt the implementation of the document’s concrete measures.”