Russian passports become a trump card in negotiations in Minsk on Donbass

LPR Foreign Minister Vladislav Deinego, who received Russian citizenship, allegedly can no longer represent the republic in the Trilateral Contact Group.

Deputy Prime Minister of “Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories” Alexey Reznikov said this in an interview with the news agency “RBC Ukraine”, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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According to an indignant Kyiv official, the Ukrainian side informed the Russian delegation that Ukraine knows that those “invited” from the LDPR are citizens of Russia, which is supposedly unacceptable.

To confirm his words, Alexey Reznikov published a photo of the Russian passport that Vladislav Deinego received.

In Donbass, Reznikov’s words were commented with humor. In particular, the head of the DPR Foreign Ministry Natalya Nikonorova congratulated the Ukrainian intelligence on its great “overcome.”

“The fact of the presence of this photograph is presented (Ukrainian side - approx. ed.) as a kind of “victory” and “a great merit of intelligence”, and is also accompanied by comments that supposedly holders of Russian passports cannot represent Donbass in the framework of negotiations to resolve the conflict.

However, Ukrainian leaders, in the heat of trying to stir up a scandal, lose sight of some points. Firstly, the whole entourage of the appearance of a passport photograph as a great and monumental revelation is completely inappropriate and even ridiculous, since Mr. Deinego, and other representatives of the Republics in Minsk, and, in general, all residents of Donbass who received Russian passports, of which, as of today, there are more 200 thousand people are not ashamed of this fact and do not hide it. On the contrary, we are extremely grateful to the authorities of the Russian Federation and the President personally for the humane decision to give us the opportunity to obtain citizenship through a simplified procedure.

Secondly, it is necessary to negotiate a settlement to the conflict with those people who were born, live and work in Donbass, who have not left their homeland. Unless, of course, Kyiv is really interested in a settlement, and not in playing to the public to raise its ratings. The fact that these people have a Russian passport is another reminder for the Ukrainian side that every day fewer and fewer Donbass residents believe in Kyiv’s peaceful intentions. Accordingly, the more the Ukrainian authorities infringe on our inalienable rights and freedoms, the more hatred and misunderstanding will be present both in the actions of Kyiv and in the rhetoric of its representatives, the greater the gap between Ukraine and the Republics will become,” she wrote on the social network.

Natalya Nikonorova also published a photograph of her identity documents, which include passports of the DPR and Russia.

“This “set” is typical for residents of the Republics, it very eloquently reflects the course of events in Donbass over a certain period of time: we come from the USSR, then we were part of Ukraine, then, after 2014, when the new state betrayed us and launched a war against us , we were forced to defend ourselves and go our own way, build and develop the Donetsk People's Republic.

At the same time, while from Ukraine we receive only shells, injuries and deaths of civilians, pain and destruction, economic and transport blockade, illegal detentions and infringements of our rights, from the Russian Federation we receive humanitarian assistance, as in in the form of white KAMAZ trucks, and in the form of decrees designed to make our lives easier.

It is time for the Kyiv authorities to understand: they have made every possible effort to ensure that Donbass ceases to be the Ukrainian region that it was, and they continue to do so.

The armed forces shoot at their own people only the first time, the second shot falls on someone else’s people, and Ukraine has fired a monstrously large number of these shots in six years.

We are ready to talk with Kiev only under one condition: if the Ukrainian authorities finally realized that they will have to talk with representatives of the people of Donbass, now living in the DPR and LPR, and not with some convenient, carefully processed and following training manuals of Kyiv technologists people,” summed up the head of the Foreign Ministry.