Russia insists on expanding the Minsk format of trilateral consultations by including representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR, respectively), says Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's ex-president who represents Kyiv in the Trilateral Contact Group

"You know what Russia has been insisting on? This should not be the trilateral format that was approved by the 'Normandy-format' leaders [France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine]. They want it to be trilateral plus representatives of certain Donbas areas. We cannot agree to that," Kuchma told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.

DPR and LPR representatives should attend these consultations "not as voters but as advisors," he said. "We are conducting a broad negotiating process with them, but decisions should be made elsewhere," Kuchma said.

This is going to be among the central issues at a meeting of Normandy Group deputy foreign ministers in Paris on June 10, he said. "Whether Russia will change its stance - we will hear today. I am convinced that it will be one of the main problems there. It is hard to predict what instructions the Russian representative will bring there," Kuchma said.

He also thinks that the escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine is "to a certain extent" related to Russia's position. "This is not only related to the situation in Minsk, this is also related to the G7 meeting and to how soon the EU summit should take place, which is due to consider sanctions-related problems," Kuchma said.

In his view, "Russia is sending a signal: 'I will continue acting as I did despite all the sanctions'. We are all well aware that all these sanctions will by no means change Russia's stance. Its resource is still very great and it will withstand. It is more Europe who is failing to withstand rather than Russia," Kuchma said.