KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th December, 2019) Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said on Sunday that diplomatic settlement plays the central part in Kiev's plan to reintegrate the Donbas region into Ukraine.
On Saturday, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, announced that the council had approved a scenario of Donbas reintegration.
"Plan A is to resolve the conflict diplomatically, to walk toward peace, while standing for national interests. As a matter of principle, there can be no talk about surrendering [Ukraine's] interests in a sense of abandoning of territorial integrity, of sovereignty. Crimea and Donbas are Ukraine's territories, and Ukrainians live there," the prime minister said during a broadcast by Ukrainian 1+1 tv channel.
Kiev launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk five years ago after they proclaimed independence from Ukraine, refusing to recognize the new central government. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been saying that peace in the region is one of the main goals of his presidency and that he is ready to sacrifice ratings and popularity to achieve it.
