DONETSK, January 12. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is bluffing saying the conflict in eastern Ukraine can be over in just two weeks, since he cannot control the military, Denis Pushilin, a deputy speaker of the People’s Counil (legislature) of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and DPR’s official representative at the Contact Group talks, said on Monday.
“It is pure bluff on his part. He controls nothing in Donbas. Ukraine does not fulfill the Minsk agreements, and this is a fact. What we are talking about? We see that they are shelling our settlements. Commanders of Ukrainian battalions openly say they are not obeying Poroshenko’s orders. How can he fulfill the Minsk agreements then? How can he be so definite about these two weeks,” Pushilin told the Donetsk News Agency.
Earlier on Monday, Poroshenko said the conflict in eastern Ukraine would be over in two weeks if the parties observed all key provisions of the Minsk agreements. “To stop the war it is necessary to simply fulfill the Minsk agreements that were signed in September,” Poroshenko said in an interview with the France 24 television channel. “The key element of these agreements is a ceasefire regime, closing the border and pullout of all foreign troops.”
When these key provisions are fulfilled, the conflict, in his words, would be exhausted in a span of two weeks.
He said the crisis in Donbas, which needs urgent settlement, “is not a purely Ukrainian problem and is a threat to global security.” “The post-war system of global security, which rests on the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, is not working any longer and we must find another way to stop terror, to stop aggression,” Poroshenko said.