MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The draft amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution on decentralization of power should be analyzed for conformity with the Minsk agreements, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"Of course, this document needs to be analyzed and studied very carefully for conformity with the Minsk accords and the Steinmeier formula," he said.
When asked to comment on the fact that the bill makes no mention of the special status of Donbass, Peskov stressed that "there is nothing to discuss here." "There are the Minsk agreements, and in Paris (at the Normandy Four summit held on December 9 - TASS), the parties reaffirmed their commitment to the Minsk agreements. On the other hand, the entire sequence of actions is enshrined in the Minsk Package of Measures in fairly plain language," he said.
On Monday, a bill on introducing amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution on decentralization of power submitted by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was posted on the Ukrainian parliament’s website. The document contains no provisions about the special status of the Donbass region provided for by the Minsk agreements.
The explanatory note states that the bill was drafted "in accordance with the European Charter of Local Self-Government." The main innovation of the reform is disbanding local and regional administrations and introducing the prefect institution, which will perform the function of administrative supervision over compliance with Ukraine’s Constitution and laws by local self-governing bodies.
The local self-governance reform in Ukraine began in 2014 under President Pyotr Poroshenko. However, it has not been carried through, since the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) was to approve some amendments to the country’s Constitution.