15:00 17.11.2017

Russia wants to turn Donbas into another frozen conflict zone - Kuchma

1 min read
Russia wants to turn Donbas into another frozen conflict zone - Kuchma

The second President of Ukraine and representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, Leonid Kuchma, believes that Russia wants to turn Donbas into another frozen conflict zone.

"What Russia has proposed to do on the contact line would create a new border with Ukraine. It is not even proposed to follow the example of Transdniester, another frozen conflict; the entire thing will be much worse, because Transdniester does not share a border with Russia," Kuchma told reporters in Kyiv on Friday.

According to Kuchma, the meeting between Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and the United States' Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, Kurt Volker, did not deliver results. "The U.S. has proposed 29 provisions, and Russia has agreed to accept three of them; what he [Surkov] said, that 'Three is more than zero' is wrong, it is exactly zero," Kuchma said.

The Donbas settlement process has no future at the moment, Kuchma said. "There is no chance of bringing peace to the region through what's happening now," he said.

Ukraine should be firm and insist that the peacekeeping contingent be deployed across Ukraine, including the Ukrainian-Russian border, Kuchma said.

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