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Ukraine’s power change didn’t result in Donbass conflict progress, says Russian ministry

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. The new Ukrainian leadership is not rushing to follow up on promises to end the conflict in Donbass, the Russian Foreign Ministry answered questions posed to Russian acting Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his press conference. The answers were published on the ministry’s official website on Friday.

"The power change in Ukraine in summer 2019 unfortunately did not lead to progress in settling the Donbass conflict," the Russian diplomatic agency noted. "The new leadership of the country, having declared end to war in southeast as one of its top priorities, is taking its time in implementing this task. The situation continues to be difficult and tense."

The ministry underlined that the ceasefire declared in July was supposed to be indefinite, but has not resulted in complete halt of hostilities, while the bill on constitutional amendments on decentralization of power submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, in December "in reality had little to do with decentralization but rather with the administrative and territorial makeup of the country, boosting powers of the central authorities."

At the same time, the ministry underscored that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky unlike his predecessor succeeded in implementing decisions of the Normandy Four summits in 2015-2016 envisioning disengagement of forces in three areas on the line of contact and enshrined the ‘Steinmeier formula’, unblocking the way to hold a Normandy Four (Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine) summit in Paris on December 9. "Its main result was unanimous reiteration that there is no alternative to the Minsk Agreements as a basis to settle the conflict in Ukraine," the ministry added. "The Normandy Four leaders have already gave clear recommendations to the [Trilateral] Contact Group on specific areas of settlement. First steps have already been taken. The Verkhovna Rada extended the Donbass’ special law status until December 31, 2020 and a detainee swap was held on December 29, 2019."

"Yesterday, January 16, Minsk hosted the first meeting of the Contact Group this year. We are hoping that its members will continue constructive work to look for compromises in resolving the existing problems," the diplomatic agency concluded.

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