Contact Group refuses to adopt statement condemning Donbass elections, says LPR envoy

LUGANSK, November 6. /TASS/. The Contact Group on resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine refused to adopt a Kiev-drafted statement, condemning the upcoming elections in the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LPR, DPR), LPR Special Representative to the Contact Group’s political subgroup Rodion Miroshnik told TASS.

"Kiev’s initiative to adopt a Contact Group statement condemning the November 11 elections in the LPR and DPR did not find support among the group’s members," he said.

Miroshnik pointed out that "Ukrainian representatives tried to disrupt the meetings of both the political subgroup and the Contact Group, insisting that the upcoming LPR and DPR elections be discussed instead of issues on the meetings’ agenda, which particularly included the special status of Donbass, the withdrawal of troops and military hardware and the prisoner exchange."

"The attention Kiev is paying to the elections is very strange as Ukrainian authorities already said they would not recognize their results. It would be enough for them to do," the LPR envoy said. He noted that "the elections were called to form government bodies in a democratic way, which is very important, particularly for the continuation of the Minsk talks."

"However, Ukraine is more interested in creating chaos in the Donbass republics and disrupting the entire Minsk process than in resolving the conflict," Miroshnik concluded.

Meanwhile, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Contact Group Martin Sajdik said that the group’s next meeting would be held in Minsk on November 22.

On November 11, general elections will take place in the DPR and LPR. Voters will elect republican heads and members of the People’s Councils. The elections were called following DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko’s death in a terrorist attack. Russian Representative to the Contact Group Boris Gryzlov explained that the Package of Measures signed in Minsk concerned only municipal elections in Donbass, while the elections of the DPR and LPR heads were not municipal so they would not violate the Minsk process.