Security remains key to fully resolving the political, humanitarian, socio-economic problems in the parts of Donbas beyond Ukraine's government control, according to Darka Olifer, spokeswoman for Ukraine's second president Leonid Kuchma who represents Ukraine in the Trilateral Contact Group.

"The Separate Districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions continue systemic shelling, killing people and destroying infrastructure. The main precondition for settling the security situation is to return control over the Ukrainian-Russian state border to Ukraine," Olifer wrote on her Facebook page after the Trilateral Contact Group's talks in Minsk.