Russia pays for failure to obey Minsk agreements by weaker ruble – Poroshenko

"This is the price the aggressor paid for the absolutely irresponsible action [failure to fulfill Minsk agreements]," Poroshenko said in an interview with Bloomberg news agency in Davos on Thursday, as reported by the press service of Ukrainian head of state. Poroshenko said that the less money Russia could spend on the military expenditure, the better it was for Russia itself, for its neighbors, and the whole world. Ukrainian president claimed that there was no positive delivery from Russia on the Minsk deal. He noted that terrorists carried on violations of the ceasefire regime, while Ukraine continued to lose its solders. At the same time, the decrease of firing directly depended on Russia. Meantime, the monitoring mission of the OSCE was denied access to both uncontrolled part of the Ukrainian-Russian border and the occupied territory during the past week. The head of the Ukrainian state said that "Russia should be a predictable country." "Until now, nobody can predict what will be the development of the situation in Syria; nobody can predict what will be the development of the situation in Ukraine. That is why we should spend 5% of our GDP on security and defense program just to build up effective armed forces and stop Russian aggression," the president said. According to Poroshenko, his four-hour meeting with U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden confirmed that the Ukrainian side demonstrated progress in fulfilling Minsk agreements. The head of state noted the key role in this process of the European Union partners, in particular Germany and France, which participated in the Normandy format, and also emphasized the importance of the transatlantic solidarity with Ukraine. Poroshenko noted that Ukraine was one of the top-priority topics on the agenda of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, as confirmed by the president's numerous bilateral meeting with leaders of many countries. "The security situation in Ukraine is closely connected to the security situation in the whole Europe and the global security. And when we talk about the de-escalation in Ukraine, we talk about the defense of the interest of the people who live in all the member states. That's why it is so important to stop Russia, that's why it is so important to de-escalate the conflict, that's why it is so important to withdraw the troops and keep the situation under control," Poroshenko said.