Kiev does not want and cannot abide by the Minsk Agreements, they only pretend they are committed to peace, Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin claims in the interview with Ukraina.ru.
“Ukraine has been pursuing the policy of Poroshenko’s term. That is, simulation and profanation. Such words can define everything that comes from Ukraine. Kiev does not want and cannot comply with the Minsk Agreements and pretends, apparently, for its Western partners that they are committed to peace. But, alas, we have not seen any peace or trends towards peace from the Ukrainian side. This is evidenced by the recent number of attacks, and these figures say a lot, they are higher than even during the same period of Poroshenko’s rule.
Moreover, Ukraine is derailing withdrawal of forces under various far-fetched pretexts. Even despite the December treaties in the Normandy format, which actually could have prompted Ukraine to negotiate a disengagement.
Before that, Ukraine refused to withdraw the forces along the whole line of contact, our side could have regarded it as a termination of the active phase of hostilities, of course. This could have established a total ceasefire. But no, Ukraine did not go for it. Ukraine does not seek to end the war. We see it this way exactly. And all other disengagement areas, even intermediate ones, are still being blocked up by Ukraine,” Denis Pushilin said.
The Head of State also notes that at the beginning of Zelensky’s election campaign they hoped that the situation in Donbass would enter upon a constructive track.
“Zelensky could have ordered ceasefire, it is in his power, since he rules all governmental institutions, be it the Verkhovna Rada, government, law enforcement bodies, the Ministry of Defense. But he has not done that for the whole year. So his desire for peace is just a simulation. This is what we see now from Zelensky,” Denis Pushilin said.
Answering a question about how the problems related to the coronavirus pandemic are being addressed, the DPR Head says that the Republic is handling the situation successfully.
“We can safely say that we keep the situation under control quite successfully, but it is also thanks to our people, who have developed a certain discipline and they know what personal safety is.
Now we can talk about some planning to ease the restrictions in the very near future.
We were preparing for the worst, but we perfectly well realized that the economy might not be able to hold up very severe restrictions. Given that we already live in an economic blockade, additional restrictions can be critical. Therefore, our task was to strike the right balance between the safety of our citizens and the economic soundness in the Republic for the time being,” the Head of State stressed.