Ukraine's representative in the trilateral contact group for the settlement of the situation in Donbas, Ukraine's second president Leonid Kuchma has said that he would gladly hand over his position in the contact group to Ukraine's first president Leonid Kravchuk.

"I have several times offered our president [Petro Poroshenko] to replace me with Leonid Kravchuk," Kuchma told journalists in Kyiv on Friday.

To which Kravchuk responded: "No, I'm not going there. There is no one I can talk to there.

"Kuchma, for his part, reiterated: "And I have not been asked. They will sign a decree that that will be it."

"Negotiations need to be conducted. Do you think I am glad to go there [to Minsk]? My [blood] pressure is different when I return [to Kyiv]," Kuchma said.