Ukraine will not consolidate the special status of Donbass through amendments to the Constitution, said Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. He said this in an interview with Today.
According to him, the country is undergoing a reform on the decentralization of power, within the framework of which one can consider the special status of the regions of Donbass, but their mention in the Constitution is excluded.
“With regard to the mention of the so-called Ordlo (separate regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions) in the Constitution, this is unacceptable to us, and we are frankly talking about this with our partners,” Kuleba said.
Kuleba was also asked about the "ultimatum" on the adoption of such amendments, which was allegedly put forward by the Russian side at the recent negotiations in Berlin.
“When Russia is not satisfied with the position of some law of Ukraine or a bill in Ukraine, then this is a problem for Russia, not Ukraine. We are an independent state and will adopt the laws that we consider necessary. We respect our international obligations and always correlate our legislation with international obligations. But no country will tell us what the law should be. We do not have a bureau of satisfaction and hotelok of any country, ”said Dmitry Kuleba.
- Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba
- © Press Service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine
Ukrainian political scientist and economist Alexander Dudchak, in an interview with RT, noted that officials of the Zelensky administration once again declare their intention not to comply with the provisions of the Minsk Agreements under any pretext.
“The fact that Ukraine will not consider the option of amending the Constitution to consolidate the legal status of certain regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions is a direct violation of the Minsk agreements. If Kiev does not want to do this, it means that it actually signs that it is not going to fulfill this agreement, ”the political scientist said in a conversation with RT.
"The position of the Ukrainian state"
In early July, negotiations were held in Berlin at the level of political advisers to the heads of the Norman Four countries, which discussed the settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Dmitry Kozak, the deputy head of the presidential administration, who represented Russia at the meeting, stated that there was no breakthrough. He said that the parties failed to agree on a final document or create prerequisites for a meeting of the four countries at the ministerial level.
Kozak confirmed that Moscow expects from Kiev draft amendments to the Constitution, which would regulate the special status of Donbass, but did not receive an answer about when they will be prepared.
Commenting on this meeting, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky also said that no one in Kiev could demand the adoption of such amendments.
“Firstly, no one can demand anything from Ukraine, we are an independent country. It seems to me that here everyone needs to work on rhetoric. Moreover, this is international rhetoric already, ”Zelensky said.
Recall that Kiev itself undertook to introduce the special status of the regions of Donbass into the Ukrainian Constitution by signing the Minsk agreements. This is also one of the provisions of the so-called Steinmeier formula - the mechanism for the phased implementation of the Minsk agreements, which was adopted by the participants of the “Norman Four” in 2016.
However, the Ukrainian authorities, under the leadership of President Petro Poroshenko, actually froze the implementation of the Minsk Agreements as a whole and the implementation of the Steinmeier formula.
In October 2019, Vladimir Zelensky announced that Kiev had agreed on this document, which would become part of the new law on the special status of Donbass. This statement led to protests in Ukraine, organized by nationalists who called it surrender.
In response, Zelensky assured Ukrainian citizens that “no surrender, no surrender of national interests” will occur. Subsequently, he said that the adoption of the law on the special status of Donbass should be preceded by a new meeting of the “Norman Four”, at which agreements would be reached on ways to end the war.
“If we meet in the“ Norman format ”, if the four sides agree, how do we regulate further, and if all parties and the Russian side want to end this terrible tragedy and this war. If we agree on this, we will talk about the implementation of the Steinmeier formula in the law on special status, ”Zelensky said at a briefing following a meeting with Latvian President Egils Levits.
- The meeting of the leaders of the "Norman Four" in Paris, December 9, 2019
- Reuters
- © Thibault Camus / Pool
The first meeting of the four countries' leaders in four years was held in Paris on December 9, 2019. Following the results of this summit, the parties adopted a communique in which they spoke about the need to integrate the Steinmeier formula in the legislation of Ukraine.
The head of the Center for System Analysis and Forecasting Rostislav Ishchenko believes that Ukraine has long formed a position according to which the Minsk agreements were signed in order to save Kiev from military defeat, and not in order to fulfill them.
“This is not the position of Zelensky or Poroshenko, this is the position of the Ukrainian state. Presidents may change there, but the position will remain the same. Now they have gone a little further, they are trying to disavow the Minsk agreements. After all this, they want Russia to say that since Ukraine does not comply with the Minsk agreements, they are no more. This is necessary so that Ukraine could say that Russia withdrew from the Minsk agreements and imposed a war. In fact, Ukraine has long disavowed them and will not implement the agreements, ”the political scientist noted.
An RT source in the Batkivshchyna party notes that deliberately delaying the implementation of these agreements will lead to a complete loss of confidence in Kiev from Western partners.
“Not a single normal country will become associated with Ukraine. World leaders spent years negotiating, spending their time meeting and - what? In Ukraine, they simply changed their minds, ”the source said.
A RT source in the Servant of the People party associates the rhetoric of Kiev with the falling rating of Zelensky and his team.
“Zelensky’s rating is falling and if the Minsk agreements are implemented now, the rating will finally collapse. For a long time, Ukrainians were told that the country could return the Donbass only on its own terms. This, of course, will not happen. Therefore, as in the days of Poroshenko, Russia will be to blame for everything, ”says the channel’s interlocutor.
Mirror charges
In his interview, Dmitry Kuleba also claims that Ukraine tried to implement the Minsk agreements, but Russia allegedly tries to “interpret” them on its own terms.
“We very much hope that Russia will take a constructive and responsible position on the Minsk agreements and begin with the first, most important rule - this is a complete universal ceasefire. Point. And putting the Minsk Agreements upside down and demanding political reforms in Ukraine, transformations before fulfilling all the other points is literally shifting responsibility from a sore head to a healthy one, ”Kuleba said in an interview with Today.
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Alexander Dudchak, commenting on the statements of Kuleba, noted that the Ukrainian Foreign Minister is actually trying to accuse Moscow of what Kiev is actually doing.
“The Ukrainian authorities are turning the Minsk agreements upside down, reading them from bottom to top and from right to left. This agreement clearly spells out the sequence of actions. They do not demand more from the Ukrainian side than the implementation of the clauses of this agreement, the first of which is a ceasefire, ”the political scientist recalled.
In turn, the RT source in the Golos party believes that the Zelensky administration will shift its incapacity in resolving the conflict in the Donbas to Russia.
“In the coming years, we will all listen to the same story about how Ukraine is trying, but hindering Russia. If there were Russian troops in the Donbass, the vaunted Ukrainian army with all its “new arsenal” of weapons would not last a day. If Zelensky does not want to make concessions, then let him say so, and not come up with stupid excuses, ”says a representative of Golos.
Alexander Dudchak noted that when signing the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian authorities knew that they would not seriously deal with this issue, so now they are shifting responsibility to Russia.
“The Ukrainian side is not going to implement the Minsk agreements, and this will continue until the West turns a blind eye to what is happening. Until Zelensky receives an order from above, he will maintain a state of “neither peace nor war,” the political scientist concluded.