Donbass “gratefully rejected” Lukashenko’s intrusive proposal
The Donetsk People's Republic does not need peacekeeping forces from Belarus to ensure order on its territory and on its borders. The head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, stated this on his official website, commenting on the initiative announced today by Alexander Lukashenko to send Belarusian troops into Donbass.
“The Republic’s own law enforcement agencies cope with these tasks independently and quite effectively. Minsk is the venue for the Contact Group negotiations. This is a very valuable and more than sufficient contribution of Belarus to the peace process. Therefore, we gratefully reject the proposal of the Belarusian leadership to introduce their contingent to our borders,” Pushilin said.
Today the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko once again complained, this time to Ukrainian journalists, that Europe rejected his plan for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbass. According to him, “everyone resisted”: both Russia and the European Union, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I then asked: you – Ukraine, on the one hand, Russia, on the other – define our role. If you want us to close the 400 km border between Ukraine and Russia, which is not currently controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, we will close it.
Although it is a big problem for me to get directly involved with troops in this conflict, we are ready to send in peacekeepers, border guards, troops, whatever you want. We are ready to close this section of the border if there is agreement between the two sides. And we will behave at the border as the two parties agree: Ukraine and Russia.
And neither from Ukraine, so you know, nor from Russia there was an answer to this question,” Lukashenko said.
Interestingly, a few days ago the Belarusian president also voiced another initiative - US involvement in negotiations on the fate of Donbass. Without the participation of Washington, the current negotiators - the Russian Federation, France, Germany and Ukraine - will not be able to resolve the conflict, Lukashenko said.
Meanwhile, press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said today that Lukashenko’s proposal for peacekeepers goes beyond the scope of the Minsk agreements, since they do not provide for the introduction of such a contingent.
“This is a new proposal. First of all, you need to understand the attitude of the parties to the conflict towards such a proposal. The participants in the conflict in this case are, on the one hand, Kyiv, and on the other hand, the self-proclaimed republics of Donbass,” Peskov said.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.