MOSCOW, July 6 /TASS/. Ukraine’s new constitutional reform gives absolute powers to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Oleg Bondarenko, director of the Strategic Communications Agency, said at a roundtable meeting at TASS on Monday.
"The constitutional reform has been announced by Poroshenko to strengthen and expand the presidential powers without pursuing a policy of decentralization. The word federalization is forbidden in Ukraine. That is why they are using the term decentralization to bring the presidential power closer to the communities’ level," the expert said.
"Ukraine has a unitary communal system, in which there is no place for Donbas," Bondarenko said.
Another expert who took part in the roundtable meeting said that Kiev was forcing Donbas out of the constitutional space and was unwilling to talk to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic.
"Kiev’s steps are forcing Donbas out of the [Ukrainian] constitutional space. If the Ukrainian ruling class is not going to talk to the self-proclaimed republics [DPR and LPR], it is unlikely to succeed in incorporating Donbas on any terms," Alexey Chesnakov, the head of the Russian Center for Political Conjuncture, said adding it’s time to show goodwill and take a political commitment not to let the constitutional process go beyond the point of no return.
"The authorities in Kiev are carrying out their own independent constitutional process, leaving few chances for Donbas to join it," Chesnakov said.