Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, voiced the belief on Wednesday that the Ukrainian government should establish dialogue with the eastern breakaway region of Donbas instead of holding a referendum on relations with Russia
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd May, 2019) Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, voiced the belief on Wednesday that the Ukrainian government should establish dialogue with the eastern breakaway region of Donbas instead of holding a referendum on relations with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's administration said on Tuesday that the president suggested to organize a national referendum on the format of future negotiations with Russia. Matviyenko said that Russia welcomed any signals of Kiev's desire to mend ties with Russia because it understood how important it was to restore "brotherly" relations between the two countries. Meanwhile, she voiced the belief that it was not the referendum that Kiev should currently focus on.
"The conflict in the south-east of Ukraine has to be solved peacefully. [The Ukrainian government] has to get down to the negotiations table together with the [self-proclaimed] Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. No foreign player can help solve this task," Matviyenko told reporters.
She added that the new Ukrainian president and his team had to formulate their priorities in domestic and foreign policies and to communicate their program of the country's development to the Ukrainian people.
