KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd August, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Wednesday that he was appalled by the fact that many Ukrainian politicians shared the view of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Kiev's responsibility for the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.
"What shocks me as the president is that there is ... a lot of supporters of [Russian President Vladimir Putin] in our political circles and that they try to remove the responsibility for the war from him and shift it onto Ukraine," Poroshenko said at a veteran meeting in Kiev.
According to Poroshenko, Ukrainian politicians are so blinded by the internal competition that consciously or unconsciously echo Moscow's position on Donbas.
The military operation in Donbas was launched by Kiev in 2014, after residents of the region refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government. In 2015, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the leaders of the so-called Normandy Four group (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine) was reached in Minsk, but the situation has remained tense, with both sides accusing each other of violating the truce.
Putin has repeatedly stated that Kiev perpetuates the conflict and hinders peace settlement by violating the agreements.
Russias Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that Poroshenko had found an "imaginary enemy" in Russia and could not fight this "enemy" in a dignified way.
According to Kadyrov, the Ukrainian president was only proving with his words that there were fewer and fewer of his supporters.
"And he should be blaming himself rather than Russia or Vladimir Putin for that," Kadyrov said on one of his social media accounts.
Many Ukrainians understand that Russia is not interested in sowing discord in Ukraine, Anton Morozov, a member of the Russian lower house's International Affairs Committee, said.
"We are much more interested in a stable Ukraine, with well-off people, because we have many relatives, friends there, the ties are very strong," the lawmaker said.
Morozov added that the Russian president was interested in stabilizing Ukraine, while Poroshenko and his team were more interested in reaping benefits through instability.
