“Stand and don’t give up”: Surkov broke all the Ze-gang’s plans
The Ukrainian delegation was sent to negotiations in the Normandy format in Paris with the hope that Russia would make concessions to Kyiv on Donbass. Confidence in this was added by rumors about a change in the Kremlin of the curator of the Donbass republics, but it turned out that this was still the assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, Vladislav Surkov, who took a tough position.
The general director of the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Alexander Martynenko, who was present on the sidelines of the summit, stated this on the Nash TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“During preparation, the Ukrainian delegation had hopes, based on certain information, that Russia’s position could be more flexible. At least, I know that there were such ideas and thoughts, that perhaps Russia’s position would be softened. But, as we saw at the end, as we felt during the negotiations, as the participants told me, in fact, practically no changes occurred, because the main thing was Putin, who led the negotiations, and Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov played a very serious role. As we know, this is the person who created these quasi-formations that exist there in Donetsk and Lugansk. There were thoughts that perhaps his position is not so strong now and perhaps other people who are close to Putin could offer some other options other than standing and not giving up, but in fact, how do we we saw, practically no changes occurred,” Martynenko said.
According to him, it was also obvious that Germany and France at the summit were quite loyal to Russia’s position - however, the worst fears of the Ukrainians did not come true - the Normandy meeting still did not take place in the “three against one” format.
"I can't say that she (atmosphere - author.) was absolutely friendly to Russia, but various details that the participants in the negotiations can tell about if they want, they indicated that indeed, Russia was allowed more in some technical details than others. This is true.
On the other hand, speaking essentially, I cannot call this pressure on Ukraine, but they expressed wishes that Ukraine would take more steps towards Russia. To say that it was a tough position, and the format was 3+1, where 1 is Ukraine, is actually not. I would say that the Europeans were more interested in the negotiations ending with at least something,” Martynenko explained.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.