President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky believes that the parties need to take a more flexible approach to the Minsk agreements on settlement in the Donbass, the Guardian newspaper reports.
“There are points in Minsk, if we transfer them a little, then what can it lead to bad? As soon as there are no people with weapons, the shooting will stop. This is important”, – he said.
Earlier it was reported that Zelensky threatened to withdraw from negotiations on a Ukrainian settlement if significant progress was not achieved by the end of the year. The president clarified to the newspaper that he has “two or three plans” in case of withdrawal from the negotiations. At the same time, Zelensky is still counting on success, the Guardian notes. It seemed to the Ukrainian president that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had heard him.
At the first Normandy Four countries summit in three years, which was held in Paris on December 9, 2019, the parties adopted a joint communiqué and agreed to meet in Berlin four months later to continue work to resolve the situation in the Donbass. The communiqué emphasized that the Minsk agreements remained the basis for working in the Norman format, and a separation of forces was envisaged by the end of March 2020 at three new points in the Donbass. The leaders also called for a ceasefire in the Donbass by the end of the year.
In April 2014, the Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR, which declared independence after the coup in Ukraine in February 2014. According to the latest UN data, about 13 thousand people became victims of the conflict.