Change of Donbas negotiations format may create long pause in settlement process

13:56, 17.08.2016 1 min read

Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine's representative to the security subgroup at the Trilateral Contact Group for Donbas, warned about a threat of possible blocking of the 'Normandy format' but noted that a shift to another format might lead to a pause in the Donbas conflict resolution.

"There is a threat of blocking of the 'Normandy format'," he said at a roundtable on the possibility of rapid improvement of Ukrainian defense preparations in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"The shift to another format will lead to a very long pause," Marchuk said.

Marchuk headed the SBU Security Service of Ukraine in 1991-1994. He also worked as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine in 1999-2003, and was Ukraine's defense minister June 2003 through September 2004.