Russia, leaking to the media a document demanding to cancel the Verkhovna Rada's decree on the impossibility of holding local elections in the temporarily occupied territories, made it impossible not only to do this, but also to raise such an issue in the parliament, well-known journalist Serhiy Harmash, invited by the Ukrainian side to join the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) work as a representative of the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (ORDLO) has said.

"It is obvious that the leaking to the media the document (note, prepared one for a meeting of advisers, and not for the TCG) demanding the Russian Federation to cancel the Verkhovna Rada's resolution on the elections, Moscow made impossible (even theoretically) not only to fulfill this requirement, but also to raise such an issue. Thus, Russia deliberately stalemated the situation, blocking a future meeting of the Normandy Four advisers, which Kozak [Deputy Head of the Russian presidential administration Dmitry Kozak] had previously openly opposed," Harmash wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday morning.

According to the journalist, the Russian Federation wants to disrupt the meeting, block the work of the institution of advisers, but shift the responsibility for this to Ukraine.

"Further, referring to the ineffectiveness of the institution of the Normandy Four's advisers, Moscow will put forward a demand to transfer the decisions of all issues to the level of the TCG, which does not have France and Germany, but there is ORDLO. This is the goal of the Russian Federation, and not the abolition of the Rada's decree. The decree is just a reason," he said.

Thus, Harmash believes that in the future one should expect either an attempt to subjectivize the ORDLO, or an aggravation at the front, or diplomatic pressure from the West on the Russian Federation, a sign of which will be the meeting of the Normandy Four at the level of foreign policy advisers.

"It is bad that the subject of such bargaining between the West and Moscow can be just the subjectivization of ORDLO," the journalist said.

Harmash also said that he would later publish a post with his attitude to what is now happening in the Minsk process.

Earlier, the media circulated a copy of the Russian document that the Russian side presented during the negotiations within the TCG. In the draft of the final document of the upcoming meeting of the Normandy Four advisers, Russia set out its demands on the Ukrainian side, in particular, to cancel the decree of the Verkhovna Rada, which does not allow holding local elections in the occupied territories.