Russia accused the West on Monday of sabotaging agreements that would have prevented the war in Ukraine – but the U.S. and its allies put the blame squarely on Moscow, saying there is no escaping that President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of its smaller neighbor.

People mourn over the coffins of a family killed in a fire when Russian drone hit their home in residential neighbourhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. Seven people including three children were killed on Saturday in the Russian drone attack.

Days before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia again put the cause of the war down to the failure to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements, which he blamed on “Kyiv’s sabotage” supported by the West.

The agreements aimed to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists that flared in April 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for the separatists in the mostly Russian-speaking industrial east called Donbas.

At Monday’s Security Council meeting that Russia called on the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Minsk peace plan brokered by France and Germany, Nebenzia called claims by Ukraine and Western nations that Russia refused to implement the agreements “absolutely baseless.”

Had the Minsk agreements been implemented, Nebenzia said, “the tragedy that has taken place in Ukraine today would not have happened, a tragedy in which the U.S. and the collective West are complicit as they try to achieve their geopolitical aims at the cost of Ukraine and the lives of its citizens.”

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood accused Russia of putting forward “significant myths and disinformation” in its efforts to rewrite history after it invaded a sovereign nation in violation of the U.N. Charter.

“Moscow has called us together today to lament the very violence it began, fueled and it continues to perpetrate daily,” he said.

Wood told the council Russia negotiated and signed the Minsk agreements but “ignored all commitments it made.”

“It is Russia that is the aggressor and Ukraine which is simply defending its people, its territorial integrity and its freedom,” the U.S. envoy said.

Wood said Russia trained the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine as “a proxy force to undermine Ukraine’s stability,” and said the war and Putin’s recognition of the independence as so-called independent entities “have fully and forever nullified the Minsk agreements.”

Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador James Kariuki said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed the world that Putin “was never interested in peace.”

He accused Russia of using the council meeting “in another attempt to distort history” and a desperate effort to justify its “unprovoked, unnecessary and illegal” invasion and ongoing war.

“We urge Russia once again to end its illegal invasion, withdraw from Ukraine and respect the principles of the U.N. Charter, Kariuki said, vowing that the United Kingdom will continue to stand with Ukraine and call out “Russian disinformation.”

France accuses Russia of a disinformation campaign in a key election year

French Foreign and European Affairs Minister Stephane Sejourne, center, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, left, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski attend a press conference after the Weimar Triangle talks at the Chateau de La Celle Saint-Cloud near Paris, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland met on Monday as they seek to revive the so-called Weimar Triangle, a political format that has been dormant for years. The Weimar Triangle was created in 1991 as Poland was emerging from decades of communist as a platform for political cooperation among the three nations. 

France condemned “hostile” disinformation maneuvers after the country's authorities on Monday accused Russia of operating a long-running online manipulation campaign against Ukraine’s Western backers, in the lead up to the second anniversary of Moscow’s military invasion of its neighbor.

The French foreign ministry said in a statement "no manipulation attempt will distract France from its support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s war of aggression."

Earlier Monday, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said that a network of “at least 193” websites had been set up with the aim “to spread Russian disinformation," speaking alongside his German and Polish counterparts after a meeting near Paris involving Ukraine-related talks and other issues.

Séjourné said “Russia seeks to destroy Europe’s unity and even worse, wants to make our democracies exhausted … by blurring the limit between real and fake (news), by manipulating information."

The French agency responsible for fighting foreign digital interference, Viginum, released a report describing the network codenamed “Portal Kombat" that it analyzed between September and December in 2023.

Viginum said it involves websites using the name “pravda” targeting countries including France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States. “Very ideologically oriented, this content repeatedly presents inaccurate or misleading narratives,” the report said.

It said the network also involves social media, including Telegram, through “massive content sharing automation."

French foreign ministry officials said in a media briefing that Russia has stepped up efforts to manipulate information and spread deception, targeting Kyiv’s allies in the West. They referred to messages on social media platforms such as X, formerly Twitter, and websites like Sputnik as “massive in scope” and “complex in structure.”

The aim of Russia’s disinformation campaign remains the same, officials said: To amplify Russia’s success in the Ukraine war, justify its invasion, discredit and diminish Ukraine’s military resistance and undermine civilians’ resilience in the face of daily attacks on cities and towns, and fracture Western support for Ukraine’s military and slow if not stop supply with weapons Kyiv.

Officials say Russia’s disinformation campaign goes beyond the war in Ukraine. In a year of high-stake elections in the U.K., the European Union and the United States, French officials say Russia is working to confuse and scare voters, discredit some candidates and support others, and disrupt mega sporting events such as the Paris Olympics and the European soccer championship in Germany.

The ministry also accused Russia of being behind the stenciling of Jewish stars last November on walls in Paris and its suburbs, causing alarm about the safety of France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe.

Last month, French defense officials said France, a staunch ally of Ukraine, had been a target of a Russian disinformation campaign following President Emmanuel Macron’s reaffirmation of support for Kyiv.

Last year, Viginum said it has monitored the alleged operation since soon after Russia invaded its neighbor and that France was one of several European countries targeted. It said it traced the campaign to Russian individuals, companies and “state entities or entities affiliated to the Russian state.”

The agency detected a mirror website mimicking the French Foreign Ministry’s and intervened with “protective and preventive measures,” Viginum said in a report last year.

Two years into Russia-Ukraine war, negotiations a distant prospect

Ukraine's unsuccessful counteroffensive appears to have reinvigorated Putin.

After two years of war in Ukraine, there is no prospect of negotiations to find a breakthrough as Russian President Vladimir Putin, emboldened by the erosion of Western support for Kyiv, girds for a long conflict.

2024 will be another year of war as Ukraine is determined to keep on fighting to recapture territory while Putin will only be satisfied with Kyiv's full surrender, analysts and diplomats say.

Putin may have signalled in last week's interview with right-wing US talk show host Tucker Carlson that Russia was interested in negotiations but this would be so much on Moscow's own terms that Kyiv would not countenance such talks.

"I don't see any negotiations taking place any time soon," Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Kremlin-linked Council on Foreign and Defense Policy think tank in Moscow, told AFP.

"There's nothing they can negotiate about."

While the winter of 2022 was humiliating for Putin, who failed to take Kyiv within days, he has now regrouped and appears reinvigorated by Ukraine's unsuccessful counteroffensive, the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House in a November presidential election and the rise of the far-right in Europe.

"Wouldn't it be better to negotiate with Russia?" Putin told Carlson, urging the United States to discuss a deal that would allow Moscow to control 20 percent of Ukraine's territory. "Sooner or later we'll come to an agreement anyway."

Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, reiterated Kyiv's long-held position that no negotiations were possible until Russia withdraws from occupied territories.

"In any other case, negotiations are impossible," Podoliak told AFP.

A European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, also ruled out any talks under the current circumstances.

"Negotiations can only take place when Ukraine is in a position of strength on the ground," said the diplomat.

- 'Take action' -

But after two years of resisting the full-scale invasion of the much larger neighbour, Ukraine's troops are exhausted, and a Republican holdup on US military aid and Europe's inability to ramp up weapons supplies fast enough contribute to a sense of uncertainty and gloom in Kyiv.

Cracks are beginning to emerge, with Zelensky's decision to part ways with popular army chief Valery Zaluzhny seen as a sign of the first serious split within the leadership.

By contrast, Russia has withstood the initial shock of unprecedented Western sanctions and put its economy on a war footing, ramping up production and recruitment and jailing critics of the invasion.

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, warned that Ukraine must urgently reverse course by mobilising more troops, securing more Western aid and overcoming political tensions in Kyiv.

"The main question is whether Ukraine and its allies will be able to take action in the next six months to change the current trajectory," he told AFP.

If the current problems persist, "Ukraine could start losing the war in 2024."

The US election campaign has already negatively affected the delivery of more aid to Ukraine, with Trump pushing an isolationist "America First" policy.

US officials privately say that little might be decided before America elects its new president.

- 'Late in the day' -

Putin appears to be anxiously awaiting the result of the US election, too.

"I think my expectation is that Putin won't make peace or a meaningful peace before he sees the result of our election," a senior US official said on condition of anonymity.

Trump has said he would be able to end the war in Ukraine "in 24 hours" if re-elected, with Zelensky saying such remarks were "very dangerous".

"Nobody knows what Trump's foreign policy will be, starting with himself," said former French diplomat and political analyst Marie Dumoulin.

European leaders increasingly realise that if Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine, he could then be tempted to test NATO's defences, analysts say.

In January, French President Emmanuel Macron called on European countries to back Ukraine "over the long term" and get ready in case Washington decides to pull the plug on aid.

It will take time for the continent's defence industry to step up ammunition production but the West could still turn things around, said analysts.

"For Europeans in particular, this means putting their money where their mouth is. The acquisition of ammunition, missiles, combat vehicles and spare parts is severely behind schedule," said Gustav Gressel of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"Although late in the day, Europeans can still correct this course."