The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin sees no grounds to lift sanctions on Russia, because, in his view, Moscow does not display its readiness and striving to honor its obligations under the Minsk agreements.

"I find it senseless," Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview with the Austrian magazine Profil, after being asked whether the step-by-step lifting of sanctions on Russia suggested by Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz makes sense.

The interview was published on the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's Facebook page on Sunday.

"Russia is insisting on it not being party to the conflict [in eastern Ukraine], but demonstrates neither repentance nor readiness to repair what it has done. Thus, we want to sweeten to Russia the matters it even does not want to listen to [...]," the foreign minister said.

"The sanctions are the only line between the good and evil, peace and war, which has been drawn by the European Union in this situation," he said. "No sanctions - no difference between the good and evil, one can do everything he wants to," Klimkin said.

He views it more correct to make the Russian party get back to the basics of international law and rectify the implications of its actions. "Only after this one would be able to contemplate the softening of punishment," Klimkin said.

Asked what Russia, in his view, should do in the current situation, the minister said: "It is absolutely simple. Withdraw your troops from Donbas, regardless of whether they are 'on leave' or not, bring the control over the Ukrainian border back to Ukraine, de-occupy Crimea. This is for beginning."