Donetsk, Apr 27 - DAN. Ukraine has again derailed a video conference of the Minsk subgroup on political issues due to disagreements over the participation of Donbass community representatives in the talks, Donetsk People’s Republic representative in the subgroup Natalia Mikhailova said on Tuesday.
“Today, Ukraine derailed the political group’s session using the tactic of blackmail it had applied before: we’ll walk out if Donbass community representatives are present at the talks,” Mikhailova said. “For our part, we continued to show the necessary flexibility and offer Kiev several ways to pull out of the vicious circle in order to bring the real political settlement as close as possible.”
Donetsk was ready to compromise in order to obtain results, but Kiev refused to look for ways of breaking the deadlock, she said.
“Apparently the Ukrainian representatives received a clear order not to make headway in the political group’s work and do everything possible to stall the discussion,” the diplomat said.
Earlier reports said that Donetsk had offered Kiev three options to break the deadlock over the participation of community representatives in the delegations of both sides. However, Ukraine rejected the proposals. Kiev has been derailing the political subgroup's sessions since January 2021, when DPR and LPR community representatives joined the talks.
Former Ukrainian deputy emergencies minister Vladislav Telichko and blogger Maiya Pirogova are currently DPR community representative in the Minsk subgroup on political issues.*jk