Ukraine's President Believes New Format of Talks on Donbas Should Be Launched

KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2021) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed the opinion on Wednesday that a new format of negotiations on a Donbas resolution with new participants should be created to go alongside the Normandy format.

"I thinks that [in the Normandy process] there is a backsliding, therefore I was pushing for the joining of the countries that are powerful geopolitical actors, who can influence the Russian Federation, first of all, and that would mean the end of a war in Ukraine... Actually, it can be another format in order not to breach agreements within the Normandy one, it can be a parallel format," Zelenskyy said at a briefing in Vilnius, which was broadcast by his office on Facebook.

The president also expressed the belief that an increase in the number of formats would not hinder the Donbas conflict resolution, adding that Russia "could stop the war if it wanted, irrespective of the quantity of countries involved and formats." Moscow has repeatedly announced being interested in the handling of the political and economic crisis by Kiev, and that Russia is not a party to the Ukrainian internal conflict.

The Normandy format was set up in 2014 by Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France to resolve the Donbas conflict. Meetings of the contact groups were aimed at settling the war in Eastern Ukraine; however, neither talks nor the Minsk Protocol have resulted in a restoration of peace in the region so far.