Senator Oleksiy PushkovMOSCOW, February 3 Senator Oleksiy Pushkov commented on the statement of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba about the special status of Donbass. Earlier, the minister said in an interview with Rzeczpospolita that the region would not receive a special status and veto power.Kiev's rhetoric shows Ukraine's desire to withdraw from «Minsk», said the LNR As Pushkov recalled, the special status of Donbass is prescribed by the Minsk agreements. “That is, once again, Kiev refuses to comply with them. Has Kiev generally noticed that the eastern part of Donbass already has a de facto special status, and has nothing to do with Ukraine, except perhaps purely theoretical?” — the senator wrote in his Telegram channel. According to him, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry «for some reason believes» that it is there that they decide whether to give a special status to the region or not. “They are mistaken: everything happens differently in life,” Pushkov summed up. The Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law on the special status of Donbass in 2014, but it never entered into force. The Ukrainian parliament periodically extends its validity, the last time it was done before December 31, 2021. The Minsk agreements stipulate that Kiev has committed to granting a special status to certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In accordance with the document adopted by the Rada, these territories will receive it only after local elections are held under the laws of Ukraine and under the control of international observers. However, the elections never took place, and the special status for the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR remained on paper. Kiev also insists on the withdrawal of «illegal formations» from these territories for the entry into force of the law. Russia has repeatedly drawn the attention of the United States and European countries that the Ukrainian authorities are trying in every possible way to sabotage the implementation of the Minsk agreements. At the same time, Ukraine has now concentrated half of the army’s personnel in the Donbass and is shelling the militias, including with the use of prohibited equipment. A few days ago, Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, warned the West against forcing Kiev to comply with the Minsk agreements, noting that this would lead to the destruction of the country. At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the country should comply with them.
