MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. Belarus has proved itself as a good mediator and is ready to offer a venue for talks between Russia and Ukraine, a Belarusian diplomat said on Tuesday.

"If those who are instigators of this war - and we understand that the Kiev authorities are not independent as far as decision-making is concerned - demonstrate good will, Belarus is ready to host these talks and we will be glad if peace will be reached on our soil," Alexander Shpakovsky, minister counselor of the Belarusian embassy in Russia, told TASS on the sidelines of the Yalta international forum.

According to the Belarusian diplomat, his country is known for its peacekeeping initiatives. Thus, Minsk faultlessly organized meetings of the Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in Donbass and proved that it "can organize talks of any level both from the point of view of ensuring proper conditions and from the point of view of security." "We have never refused from the role of Belarusian diplomacy’s peacekeeping mission and are not going to. It has become part of our history and our foreign policy image," he said, adding that Belarus is committed to the idea of Slavic brotherhood and is sparing no effort for restore peace between nations.

A plan for peace settlement of the conflict in Donbass rests on the Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, that was signed by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, after marathon 16-hour talks between the leaders of the Normandy Four nations, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. The 13-point document envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and the people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk and the subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including an amnesty, prisoner swaps, the resumption of economic ties, local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions. Kiev, however, for years was refusing to act on the political items of the agreement.

By February 2022, the situation along the engagement line utterly escalated due to Ukraine’s shelling attacks and on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the launch of a special military operation in response to a request for help from the leaders of the Donbass republics. After that, Belarus hosted several rounds of Russian-Ukrainian talks.

The Yalta international forum is being held in Moscow on October 23 and 24. TASS is its general information partner.