Work of the Contact Group ceased to be constructive once the Republics demanded that official representatives of Kiev comment on the Decree 3809 On the Scheduled Local Elections in 2020 (October 25, 2020), adopted on July 15, 2020 by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Its fourth paragraph is completely contrary to the Minsk Agreements, the DPR MFA reports.
In particular, we demanded that unconditional commitments be undertaken to remove all provisions of this decree that run counter to the Complex of Measures, as well as to reaffirm their full commitment to all the requirements and obligations under the Minsk Agreements without exception.
In response, the Ukrainian negotiators were unable to express some even remotely reasonable or logical official position at least, thus disabling further meaningful work of the Contact Group.
Until Kiev is unambiguously and transparently committed to the implementation of the Set of Measures for political settlement of the armed conflict in Donbass, it is impossible to discuss and even more negotiate any political, humanitarian or economic issues, as all of them are also regulated by this fundamental document of the Minsk package.