VIENNA, December 15. /TASS/. Kiev continues its policy of detaching Donbass from the rest of Ukraine in terms of humanitarian and economic ties, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
"We observe Kiev’s ongoing policy of ‘cutting’ Donbass from the rest of Ukraine," he said at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council. "It implies not only breaking of humanitarian, economic and financial ties but also ideological detachment. We see assaults on the Russian language, culture, the ‘decommunization’ saga in the worst Soviet-era traditions, glorification of accomplices of the Nazis," he added.
He said that such policy only disunites people living in Ukraine and the sooner this policy is dropped the smoother the normalization process will go.According to the Russia diplomat, Kiev is only advancing demands but does nothing else.
Touching on the border issue, Lukashevich stressed this problem can be solved only as outlined in the Package of Measures. "Attempts to bring this topic into the fore to the prejudice of political elements of settlement are counter-productive," he underscored.
The Russian diplomat noted that everyone agrees that political settlement in Ukraine should rely on the Minsk Agreements. "The change to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity can be realized through legal and material guarantees to people living in Donbass by means of enforcement of the law on Donbass special status and its inclusion in the constitution," he said.
However, in his words, Kiev keeps on interpreting this provision in an erratic way. Thus, Ukraine’s foreign minister "claims that first Donbass is to be cleared of ‘anti-Ukrainian’ elements," Lukashevich said. "It is suggested to use some sort of international presence as ‘cleansers.’ And the Kiev authorities will organize elections there only after such ‘cleansing'. No one knows whom they are seeking to fool," he noted.
He said he doesn’t think Ukraine’s statehood could be damaged by "reintegration of one of the country’s leading regions." "But it’s a different question whether it might do harm to the current authorities," he added.