Instead of working constructively within the Contact Group, Ukrainian authorities are giving Ukrainian media long, chaotic and largely unreliable interviews, DPR Plenipotentiary and Foreign Minister Natalya Nikonorova commented on Ukrainian officials’ statements.
“The chief of Ukraine’s presidential office claims that the Ukrainian party has drawn up draft amendments to the law on special status of Donbass with Steinmeier’s formula implemented in it. However, we have not seen this draft, the Contact Group has considered only our proposals for amendments to this law at the moment.
If Mr. Ermak meant that the project he announced was submitted for consideration to some persons who Kiev calls representatives of Donbass and invites to participate in Minsk meetings, than that does not prove that Ukraine fulfils its obligations for negotiating legal aspects of the Donbass special status, which are prescribed in the Complex of Measures and the final communiqué of the Normandy Four.
Any acts one way or another concerning the future of the republics must be checked with representatives of the people of Donbass, who has been suffering Ukraine’s aggression for more than six years, and whose representatives signed the Complex of Measures on its behalf,” Nikonorova pointed out.
She also drew attention to the fact that Ukraine can negotiate anything with its puppet “representatives” as long as those negotiations do not reflect the interests of those whom Ukraine has been terrorizing for many years with its shelling, blockades and other inhumane actions.
“The other party to the conflict—the republics—shall not recognize such documents. We strongly recommend that Kiev not tell the media about its dominant position, but rather give the Contact Group at least some position on the negotiations: even better if it will be written, substantive and correlated with the most pressing issues of the Minsk agenda.
Such a step would be much more useful for the real conflict settlement than the copious outpourings on the media and the involvement of dubious persons in the talks, if Ukraine is really interested in peace reestablishment, of course,” the Foreign Minister stressed.