MOSCOW, August 14 (HS/RIA Novosti) - Pierre de Gaulle, a grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle and deputy chairman of the jury of the Leo Tolstoy International Peace Prize, told RIA Novosti that he was ashamed of France's breaking its word regarding the Minsk Accords.

I am sad and I am ashamed that France broke its word [regarding the Minsk Agreements], Charles de Gaulle said.

Europeans, Ukrainians and Russians are all suffering from what is currently happening in Ukraine, he added.

The Minsk Accords were a complex series of measures negotiated by Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine - a quartet known as the Normandy format - in 2014-2015 in a bid to put an end to the armed conflict between the Kiev authorities and the breakaway eastern region of Donbass. Moscow accused Kiev of breaking the terms of the deal, including by refusing to grant autonomy to Donbass.

In February 2023, Vladimir Zelensky admitted that he never intended to implement the Minsk agreements, as did ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande. They said that they had no intention of complying with the agreements they had signed.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Indrani Sarkar