Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Kiev would lose the support of its Western partners if it did not comply with the Minsk agreements and would be left to face Russia alone
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th October, 2019) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Kiev would lose the support of its Western partners if it did not comply with the Minsk agreements and would be left to face Russia alone."If we do not pass the law on [Donbas] special status, do not implement the 'Steinmeier formula,' and do not move along the path of the Minsk process, we then leave the Minsk process - this will automatically [mean Kiev's withdrawal from the Minsk agreements] ... This is my impression of what might happen, and this is another reason for the other side [the West] to say that Ukraine itself does not want to fulfill what it has signed, and then we might be left alone with Russia," Zelenskyy said during a press marathon.
On October 1, the Contact Group on Ukraine met in Minsk and signed an agreement on a peace plan dubbed the "Steinmeier formula," which envisages a special status for Donbas in exchange for the latter holding local elections in line with Ukrainian law under the oversight of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The approval of the formula by Kiev has already faced a strong backlash from Ukraine's nationalist forces.
In April 2014, the Ukrainian government launched an offensive against the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics, which claimed independence after what they considered to be a coup in Ukraine two months earlier. Fighting for the control of two breakaway provinces in Ukraine's east has killed around 13,000 people, according to the United Nations' latest estimates.
Prospects for peace have been discussed in various forms, including during the meetings of the Contact Group in Minsk, which, since September 2014, has already adopted three documents regulating steps to de-escalate the conflict. Nevertheless, fighting in the region continues.
