Kiev is interested in various formats of negotiations with Moscow.

This was stated by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to him, in February the Ukrainian side sent a request to Moscow for a telephone conversation between the two presidents.

“No one confirms the telephone conversation ... We were interested in various formats of agreements, conversations with Russia,” Zelensky said in an interview with RBC Ukraine.

At the same time, Kiev is counting on organizing another meeting in the Normandy format in the near future on the initiative of Berlin, as Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk said the day before.

“We expect that Chancellor Scholz will convene a new summit in Berlin in the Normandy format in the coming weeks in order to overcome the dangerous silence between President Zelensky and President Putin,” the diplomat said in an interview with the German media group Funke.

Ukraine also expects that after the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Moscow, “German turbo-diplomacy will increase not only in speed and dynamics, but also in achieving concrete results,” Melnik added.

"Hard Information War"

Recall that the only summit in the Normandy format at the highest level during the presidency of Vladimir Zelensky was held at the end of 2019.

Then the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, following the results of the talks, adopted a statement on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass.

The parties agreed to regard the Minsk agreements as the basis for the work of the Normandy format and reaffirmed their commitment to this document.

In addition, the final statement spoke of the need to achieve a complete ceasefire by the end of 2019, to carry out the disengagement of weapons, and to exchange detainees in the “all for all” format.

The parties also stated the need to integrate the "Steinmeier formula" into Ukrainian legislation.

  • Leaders of the countries participating in the Normandy format during the summit in December 2019

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  • © Alexei Nikolsky/ZUMA Press

Recall that this mechanism for the implementation of "Minsk" was proposed in 2015 by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who then headed the German Foreign Ministry.

According to the formula, a special status for Donbass will be granted on the day of early elections in the region on a temporary basis.

The law will permanently take effect after the OSCE confirms the legitimacy of the vote.

However, in practice, Kiev is in no hurry to comply with the terms of the Minsk agreements, especially their political part, although seven years have passed since the signing of the document.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General António Guterres that the Minsk agreements cannot be implemented "on Russia's terms."

As reported on the website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, these measures are not subject to implementation on conditions that involve direct dialogue between Ukraine and certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

At the same time, Kiev is ready for negotiations with the participation of Russia in the Normandy format.

Recall that the negotiations of political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy Four countries were held on February 10 in Berlin.

However, as Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of the presidential administration of Russia, stated after the meeting, they did not bring significant results.

“Unfortunately, almost nine hours of negotiations ended without any visible, tangible results expressed in documents.

We tried to agree on a final statement of our negotiations, building on the previous meeting in Paris on January 26,” he said.

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  • © Serhii Hudak/ Ukrinform

Thomas Erndl (CDU / CSU), Deputy Chairman of the German Bundestag Committee on International Policy, also considered fruitless the past negotiations.

According to the deputy, the fact that the meeting at the level of political advisers did not produce results is a "bad sign."

At the same time, experts doubt that the German authorities will initiate new negotiations in the Normandy format.

As Oleg Nemensky, a leading researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, noted in a RT commentary, first Kiev must fulfill its earlier obligations.

“It is clear that Kiev now needs negotiations just for the sake of negotiations.

The Ukrainian side wants to create the appearance that it is taking at least some action to resolve the conflict.

Kiev is interested in maintaining the current status quo, I do not think that the Ukrainian authorities independently decided to aggravate the situation in Donbass.

It’s just that they are very dependent on Western partners,” says Nemensky.

According to Andrey Suzdaltsev, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Higher School of Economics, Zelensky is now trying to make the most of the escalation of tension.

“The fact that Zelensky is playing with the military theme is very dangerous.

Kiev interprets the absence of a Russian “invasion” as its own diplomatic “victory”.

And in order to maintain this momentum, Zelensky began to put forward initiatives for negotiations.

Today, the information confrontation has reached such intensity that even if Ukraine suddenly attacked Russia, the West would still declare “Russian aggression”.

And such a tough information war leaves no conditions for a normal dialogue, ”the expert noted in a commentary to RT.

Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries, shares a similar opinion.

According to him, at the moment there are no prerequisites for negotiations in the Normandy or other format.

“Ukraine is not fulfilling not only the political points of the Minsk agreements, but even those that it seemed to have previously tried to fulfill.

And with statements about the resumption of negotiations, Kiev simply wants to portray its desire for peace, although in reality this is not so.

And the West is well aware of this, as well as the fact that it is Kiev that is sabotaging the execution of Minsk.

However, no one will publicly talk about this for political reasons, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.

"Tension has been building up for a long time"

The Ukrainian authorities are raising the issue of resuming negotiations in the Normandy format not only against the backdrop of an information campaign by Western media and politicians about an allegedly impending Russian “invasion” into the neighboring country, but also against reports of a military aggravation in the Donbass.

The fact that the situation in the region "significantly worsened" was reported on February 17 in the unrecognized republics.

“The enemy, on the direct instructions of the Kiev military-political leadership, is making attempts to escalate the conflict,” the head of the LPR People’s Militia Department said in a statement.

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  • © Stringer/Anadolu Agency

The DPR and LPR also spoke about the shelling of a number of settlements by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“The areas of the settlements of Kominternovo, Oktyabr, Novolaspa, Petrovskoye in the DPR, as well as Vesyolenkoe, Donetsk, Zolote-5, Nizhne Lozovoe, Sokolniki in the LPR, fell into the affected area,” the Donetsk News Agency said in a statement.

“The enemy continues to carry out activities that we assess as preparation for offensive actions,” Oleg Nikitin, a representative of the People’s Militia of the DPR, said in an appeal published on Telegram.

Against the backdrop of these events, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky went on a boat to the area of ​​​​the military operation in the Donbass, which he himself wrote on Instagram.

This trip was previously announced on Zelensky's official website.

The February 16 report spoke of the president's plans to visit the Rivne and Donetsk regions, as well as to get acquainted with the "operational situation in the JFO zone."

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  • © Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

According to Pavel Feldman, Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, the situation around the Donbass republics and the Minsk agreements is nearing a climax, so tension is growing in parallel.

“The shelling of the territories of the DPR and LPR of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been ongoing for many years, tension in the contact zone in the Donbass has been accumulating for a long time,” the expert recalled in an interview with RT.

However, these violations are now in the focus of media attention, as public attention is generally riveted to the situation in the region.

Zelensky’s appeals to Moscow are more reminiscent of PR activity than a sincere desire for dialogue, the political scientist believes.

“Now Zelensky will be able to say that he allegedly did everything to resolve the situation, but it is developing according to an unfavorable scenario,” Feldman predicts.