Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Donbas Leonid Kravchuk says Russia turns out to be not in the best position right now to put forward any ultimatums to Ukraine on Donbas.
In an interview with TSN.ua, he said Ukraine had proposed an action plan for Donbas that is opening up opportunities for holding a summit of the Normandy Four leaders.
Read alsoUkraine's plan for Donbas 'taken as basis" for peace talks – delegation to TCG"But will our opponents – and while I refer to them so timidly, in reality we only have one opponent, one aggressor, which is Russia – would they want to support such ideology in this case? I believe time has come. Because, we will say frankly, the situation in Russia today is not in so awesome a position to put forward some conditions to many actors, including to Ukraine, and not make any concessions," the chief delegate said.
According to Kravchuk, countries should prevent escalation in Ukraine.
"Look, the U.S. President-Elect, Joe Biden, in his talks with European leaders twice named Ukraine among the world's hot spots – and this is something I've never seen happening, at least during my time in office. I think this is a good sign. Europe, the U.S., and the whole civilized world see it is not as just a small dot on the map in this case. It's a flame in the center of Europe, which can become a disaster at any moment. This mustn't be allowed," the official added.
Ukraine's Plan for Donbas: Five key points
On November 5, the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG outline five key points of the new action plan for Donbas:
- The withdrawal of foreign troops, illegal armed groups, and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine in early 2021;
- Cancellation by Russian authorities of a number of decisions and documents that directly interfere in the affairs of the occupied parts of Donbas, for example, on the simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to residents of those territories;
- Restoring control over the corresponding section of the Russian-Ukrainian border with the help of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission;
- A four-fold increase in the size of the OSCE SMM mission (by 1,500 persons); and
- Only if the first four conditions are met, the fifth point could be implemented, that is, to prepare and hold local elections in the occupied districts of Donetsk and Luhansk region (with the OSCE assistance).
On November 10, members of the political subgroup of the TCG took the Action Plan for Donbas, proposed by the Ukrainian side, as a basis.
