The new president of Ukraine, however he tried to misinterpret the concept of the Minsk Agreements before the summit in Paris, has officially confirmed his commitments to fulfill them as signed and approved by the guarantor countries and the UN Security Council, DPR plenipotentiary and Minister of Foreign Affairs Natalya Nikonorova summed up the Normandy Four’s meeting.
“However, due to the fault of the Ukrainian side, it was not possible to agree on the disengagement along the entire line of contact, although this was the decision previously agreed upon by the advisors to the leaders of the Normandy Four. The lives and health of citizens living by the line of contact, as well as the safety of the critical infrastructure, are still endangered by shelling from the Ukrainian armed formations.
It is necessary to focus on the fact that the Normandy Four unanimously reiterated the need for a ceasefire, but Mr. Zelensky “does not yet know how to make it happen”, which calls into question his competence and political willpower as the leader of the state and its commander-in-chief. At the same time, we have been talking for half a year about the need to observe additional measures to monitor the ceasefire, but Kiev still takes them with extreme carelessness. We emphasize once again that no more decisions are required. All that the president of Ukraine has to do is to fulfil his state’s commitments that he made after yesterday’s meeting himself.
Meanwhile, we thank President of Russia Vladimir Putin for his statements on the need to improve the living conditions of citizens living in the vicinity of the contact line Thanks to the firm stand of the Russian leader, the final protocol now contains such crucial vectors for further work in the Minsk format as the exchange of detainees based on the formula of “all identified for all identified”, the determination of other three pilot sites for disengagement, and the beginning of the work on opening more checkpoints through the line of contact.
The situation with regard to the implementation of political items in the Complex of Measures, which are the foundation of the entire peacebuilding process, is also extremely important. The Ukrainian president pledged to extend the validity of the law on the special status of Donbass and to agree with us on all legal aspects of making the special status permanent. I am referring not only to the careful elaboration of the text of this law and the introduction of amendments to it, taking into account the implementation of Steinmeier’s Formula, what it also involves is consulting with us about each subsequent bylaw on each area of focus, as well as the enshrinement of the special status in the constitution of Ukraine. We urge the Ukrainian leadership to take as seriously as possible the commitments they made and to finally begin implementing the necessary steps for a political solution.
We emphasize once again that the Normandy format is the mechanism of control over the implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the settlement of details and issues arising in that process. In that connection, the meeting at the Minsk venue is an irreplaceable way of direct interaction between the parties to the conflict and fulfilment of the Minsk package of documents in constant and mutual coordination between Kiev and Donbass. If Kiev really wants to reestablish peace, it is necessary, first of all, to negotiate with representatives of the republics without waiting for a meeting in the Normandy format for yet another unsuccessful attempt to reconsider the Minsk Agreements”, Nikonorova noted.