Russian Presidential Assistant Vladislav Surkov, who oversees Donbass issues, held a closed meeting with members of the Union of Donbass Volunteers under his patronage, where he said that following the negotiations in Paris, he sees no difference between the teams of Vladimir Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Surkov called on former and current commanders defending the LDPR to be prepared for an escalation of the situation.
Military correspondent Semyon Pegov reports this on his blog, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Everyone present was once again told that no one is going to “drain Donbass”, and if the situation escalates, the potential of the Russian volunteer movement is ready to be used as soon as possible in the volumes necessary for the front... Surkov said that he does not see a serious difference between teams of Poroshenko and Zelensky,” reports the military correspondent.
“The forces that are behind the modern puppet government of Ukraine do not need peace, they need war with Russia. Therefore, we understand perfectly well that the war will begin one way or another, and in its full form,” said SDD co-chairman Alexander Boroday at the congress.
“We are confident that the war, unfortunately, will return to the active phase. We don’t want this, but we must be prepared for it,” he added.
“At the beginning of the conflict, many people in Donbass did not yet understand what the militias and volunteers were fighting for. Now they understand perfectly well. Now they have absolutely strengthened their rejection of Ukraine remaining under the rule of Kyiv. And they do not want, in any way, at least under some guise, pretext, reason, even formally, to come under her supervision. Therefore, the installation of a yellow-black Ukrainian flag in the Donbass, no matter what is said in any diplomatic receptions, meeting rooms, corridors, lobbies, is impossible,” Borodai emphasized.
Today, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Putin and Zelensky are far from agreement on a number of issues.
“Putin and Zelensky started talking to each other. Again, they are far from agreeing on a number of issues. They, of course, use different terminology... I think they talked for about 10-15 minutes face to face, which, by the way, is not that short. Then they were interrupted by President Macron, who insisted on continuing work in the Normandy format,” Peskov said.