The conflict can be settled only by interacting with representatives of Donbass directly — Natalya Nikonorova

Representatives of Ukraine are issuing headline-making statements, still absolutely detached from reality, which would rather shut out any significant progress than contribute to the reestablishment of peace in Donbass, DPR Foreign Affairs Minister Natalya Nikonorova stated.

“The fact that no decisions were reached during the Contact Group’s videoconference meeting the Ukrainian party sees as a kind of achievement, although it fundamentally contradicts the agreements of March 11, which are enshrined in the protocol that the Ukrainian delegation’s official representative signed in Minsk.

Moreover, Kiev is telling frank lies that the Normandy Format has to agree on forming an Advisory Board as part of the political group. The protocol says that consultations on the participation of their representatives in this board must be conducted jointly with the guarantor countries, but a principal agreement on forming this advisory body has already been reached.

Nevertheless, Ukrainian representatives are trying to pass off the work of the Contact Group as “a brainchild of the Normandy Format, while ignoring the priority ranking of agreements within the Minsk process, where the parties can meet directly and solve the existing issues of conflict settlement in mutual coordination.

For the same purpose, Ukrainian officials raise the issue of Russia’s alleged involvement in the conflict in Donbas as a party, while the documents of the Minsk package clearly state that the parties to the conflict are Kiev and Donbass, and Russia, as well as the OSCE, performs mediation functions. But the Ukrainian party yet fails to accept the simple and obvious truth that the conflict is exclusively internal, caused by the huge array of contradictions and complaint that the people of Donbass held against the power after the illegal armed coup in Kiev and the lawlessness they caused.

Therefore, the Ukrainian leadership should finally understand that the situation can be settled only by interacting with representatives of Donbass directly, and all mantras about the “occupation” by Russia and the lack of subjectivity of the Republic’s representatives have long been inappropriate. Even the official Ukrainian media are already writing in plain terms about the presence of signatures of the Republic’s representatives in the Minsk agreements and in the protocol of March 11, which clearly indicates that they have the authority to represent Donbass in the Minsk format.

Also, another disconcerting thing is the terms that we hear from the representatives of Kiev as a control period to achieve progress in the Minsk process, otherwise some other plans to address the situation will be unleashed. Once again, we draw the attention of the Ukrainian authorities that the lack of significant results is entirely their fault and responsibility. Representatives of the republics, for their part, have been doing everything necessary to discuss the issues on the agenda constructively and openly for over 5 years, unlike the Ukrainian party, who seek to avoid even the smallest issues by all means, and even if some of them are addressed, Kiev sabotages them afterwards.

We have already demonstrated which our proposals Kiev sabotaged exactly and published the draft documents that Ukrainian representatives rejected on March 26.

Instead of facilitate their efforts, time and eloquence to achieve concrete, result-oriented solutions coordinated with us in the Minsk process, the Ukrainian leadership prefers to waste effort on unsubstantiated polemics with the Ukrainian media. Once again we emphasize that this is an extremely useless and counterproductive pastime, because they need to have discussions not with the media but with representatives of Donbass to settle the conflict genuinely,” Natalya Nikonorova said.