Savchenko ready meet leaders of self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine
Member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Batkivschyna Party's parliamentary faction Nadiia Savchenko has announced she is ready to go to militant-controlled Donbas in eastern Ukraine to hold negotiations with militant leaders.
"I've said a thousand times - I'm ready to go there - with cover or without it - but only to achieve results," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Answering an additional question from journalists whether she was ready to hold talks with the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), she answered: "I'm ready… and I'll go."
Savchenko said she had already been beyond the contact line, but had not encountered the militant leaders. "I was there. The self-proclaimed DPR and LPR representatives were just not aware of this. I crossed the contact line and talked to people, listened to their problems. I just did not get too close to the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk," she added.
As was reported, Savchenko said on June 7, 2016, that the Ukrainian side should establish a direct dialogue with "DPR/LPR" representatives to address the return of Donbas. She also announced readiness to negotiate with "leaders of the republics" Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky.
The second president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, who is Ukraine's envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group on the peaceful settlement of the Donbas crisis, says he has no objections against the establishment of the direct dialogue between Savchenko and "DPR/LPR" representatives if this could contribute to the resolution of the crisis in the region.
Savchenko has said she is ready to negotiate the release of captive Ukrainian soldiers with "DPR/LPR" leaders, but not with people who introduce themselves as the politicians of the self-proclaimed "republics." She mentioned "DPR" and authorized representative Denis Pushilin, who, according to her, is a "Russian-controlled puppet."