U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker has said that Ukraine needs to extend the law on the specifics of local self-government in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in order to deprive Russia of the opportunity to use this as a reproach against Ukraine.

"Ukraine has also done its share on the Minsk agreements. It has passed a special status law. It has passed a law on amnesty. It is prepared to hold local elections. The problem is that it can't implement these things as long as it is an occupied territory and so we need to keep the focus on getting it unoccupied. And if I could say it is very important that Ukraine renew the special status law as well to avoid giving Russia an opportunity to use that to beat up Ukraine just on this point of not doing its share," he said during a panel discussion at the 15th YES Conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv on Saturday.

Later at the briefing Volker said that Russia will use any opportunity to have this special status not reviewed.

He said that next day after the review of the special status law the situation in the occupied territories of Donbas will be the same as now.

Volker pointed out the importance of retaining sanctions against Russia by the EU, but it would be harder to implement this if the EU thinks and sees that Ukraine is not moving forward.