President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky will not be able to push through changes to the Constitution of Ukraine, which are provided for by the Minsk agreements.
The ex-governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who is considered close to Zelensky, stated this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.
The publication noted that in recent interviews Kolomoisky has softened his rhetoric on Donbass and calls what is happening there a “civil conflict.”
“I still call it a civil conflict. But this is our internal matter, and it has grown into a hot form only thanks to the Russian Federation. It is one of the main sponsors and source of this civil conflict. If Russia didn’t exist and she went home, then we would have resolved all these issues peacefully to everyone’s satisfaction in a maximum of two weeks,” Kolomoisky said.
According to him, the Minsk agreements do not work because they contain a clause on changing the Constitution of Ukraine.
"It will not happen. Poroshenko didn’t push it too hard, even if he did, he wouldn’t have succeeded, and he understood that. And Zelensky will not succeed. Ukraine is a single indivisible unitary state. If we start federalization, tomorrow the parade of sovereignties will begin. There is a law on special status, it was agreed upon by the Minsk agreements, and it is extended every year. It is necessary to remove the amendment to the Constitution, replace it with a five-year transition period for the special status of Donbass, and hold elections in this territory under the supervision of the OSCE. Let Russia also sit and watch, but not interfere. They elected everyone they needed, after 30 days they collected their money and go home,” says the oligarch.
They also asked him what advice he would give to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Not advice, but a wish. “Quickly leave Ukraine, saving face,” Kolomoisky said.
“You yourself said that Donbass is a civil internal conflict,” the journalists noted.
“Yes, but the Russian military is participating in it. So let them return home,” the oligarch replied.
Kiev political strategist Alexey Golobutsky, who served the interests of ex-President Petro Poroshenko, noticed that Kolomoisky was again taking openly anti-Russian positions.
“Kolomoisky’s latest interview with RBC, with a rather sharply shifted emphasis towards an anti-Russian position, clearly indicates that Kolomoisky is positioning himself as an active political player. Note: in the previous big interview - and this was before the parliamentary elections - he said approximately the same thing... But with completely different accents. As a result, it turned out that “there is a civil war in Ukraine, although Russia is contributing financially,” and Zelensky is quite a pro-Russian figure, like Igor Kolomoisky. That is, Zelensky is a good alternative to Medvedchuk, and Servant of the People is an attractive pro-Russian alternative to the Opoplatform and Oppoblok.
The elections have passed – and the emphasis in Kolomoisky’s statements is already different. In Donbass there is a “Russian-financed military conflict within only two regions with Russian military participation.” Just a nuance - but it already looks like a pro-Ukrainian position. Because now Kolomoisky has a different task: not to support his protégé, but to establish himself as a serious political figure with whom all players must reckon and negotiate,” Golobutsky writes in his blog.
Just recently, as PolitNavigator reported, Kolomoisky said that the conflict in Donbass is beneficial to the United States.
Also he directly accused Ukraine in non-compliance with the Minsk agreements.
Thereafter in Kyiv they began to say that Kolomoisky, who previously acted as the strangler of the Russian Spring and the sponsor of punitive battalions, is trying to please Russia