Ukraine's former President Leonid Kuchma has all powers to conduct negotiations in the trilateral contact group and sign documents on the settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the special operation, said.

"President Petro Poroshenko personally authorized Leonid Kuchma to participate in the negotiation process and therefore the ex-president has all powers to conduct negotiations and sign documents," Lysenko told Interfax Monday, commenting on the statement by DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko saying that the next Minsk negotiations will not take place until Kyiv appoints an official representative.

Consultations of the trilateral contact group on the settlement of the situation in Donbas took place in Minsk on Saturday. On Saturday evening, Kuchma said the round of consultations scheduled for January 31 had been disrupted.

In response to an inquiry made by Ukrainska Pravda on Saturday, the Ukrainian presidential administration said Poroshenko had appointed Kuchma a representative of Ukraine in a decree issued on July 8, 2014.

The Ukrainian presidential decree of July 8, 2014, in which Poroshenko authorizes Kuchma to represent Ukraine in the trilateral contact group on the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, was published later on Monday. "Leonid Kuchma is engaged in activities envisaged by this decree as a public service," the document says.