Zelensky collected an emergency briefing: No capitulation! Yarosha - to Donetsk!
Vladimir Zelensky today held an emergency briefing in Kyiv on the signing by the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations in Minsk of an agreement to resolve the conflict in Donbass according to the so-called Steinmeier formula.
Zelensky tried to start the press conference with a joke, addressing his press secretary Yulia Mendel about the assembled journalists with the question: “Did you push them?” - implying recent scandals with the uncontrolled behavior of an official who pushed reporters away from the head of state when trying to ask an inconsistent question.
Although it was obvious to everyone that the signing of the Steinmeier formula was the main issue (nationalists consider this procedure for implementing the Minsk agreements to be a defeat for Kyiv), Zelensky started from afar.
He emphasized several times that he expected a new exchange of prisoners (DPR representatives today reported that the Ukrainian side in Minsk, on the contrary, did not demonstrate constructiveness on this issue), and also announced the disengagement of troops in two new areas.
Only after this Zelensky moved on to the main thing: “The last obstacles to holding the Normandy Four summit have been removed. We will know the dates soon."
“I would like to separately talk about the biggest horror story of recent weeks - the Steinmeier formula. What does this formula mean? These are 1-2 statements, in principle, that’s all,” he added, reading out the explanations for granting special status to Donetsk and Lugansk:
“The law begins to operate on a permanent basis, attention, now it is very important - when local elections are held there, held in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine and the legislation of Ukraine, as well as after the publication of the OSCE report that the elections were held according to OSCE standards and international standards for democratic elections.
This means, dear journalists, that there will not and cannot be any elections at gunpoint.
The law on the special status of Donbass is valid until December 31, 2019. There will be a new law. Which will be developed by parliament in close cooperation and public discussion with society. And in this new law not a single “red line” will be crossed. There is no and there will be no surrender“Zelensky assured.
He stressed that we are talking about local elections, and not a campaign to elect representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk to the Verkhovna Rada. “Local elections in temporarily occupied territories. Well, when there are elections there, they will no longer be occupied, we understand,” Zelensky clarified.
Thus, it is obvious that Kyiv will try to play on the points emphasized by Zelensky about holding elections “in accordance with the laws and the Constitution of Ukraine.”
This, for example, suggests the possibility of the leaders of the extremist Right Sector, nationalists Oleg Tyagnibok or the culprit behind the deaths of thousands of people, Petro Poroshenko, coming to Donetsk and Lugansk to conduct campaigning.
It is likely that it is the absence of such an opportunity that Kiev will use to refuse to comply with agreements in the future.
A little later, Zelensky, in response to questions from journalists, himself voiced another “clue” from Kyiv: “When we say that elections must be held in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine, we understand that there cannot be any machine guns, the border must be ours.”
Kyiv can use the presence of armed defenders of the LDPR (Ukrainian propaganda continues to call them “Russian troops”) as another reason for “refusing” it.
«If there are any, any troops there, there can be no elections. That's all“- Zelensky snapped in response to a question from journalists.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.