Ukraine will not negotiate with self-proclaimed republics in Donbas – Kyiv will talk only with Moscow about ending the war, First Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament and Ukraine's envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko has said.

"We in Minsk today, and for all these years, have reiterated the following over and over again: there will be no direct talks with the puppets, no legitimization of the self-proclaimed republics, which do not exist. There is Ukrainian Donbas occupied by Russia. Kyiv will speak with Moscow, the ideologue and sponsor of the war in Donbas, with the occupying power that must leave. The subject of talks is 'Russia must leave Donbas,'" Gerashchenko said on her Facebook page on Wednesday, May 30.

She added that Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for the war, not his "little monkeys," and therefore any proposal about direct talks with Donetsk and Luhansk is not about peace but about capitulation according to the Kremlin scenario.