Contents tagged with Donbas

  • Ukrainian official: Russia will withdraw from Donbas next year

    Russia will leave the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions next year as plans for this have already been made, as explained by the Deputy Minister on the issues of Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine, Yuri Grymchak in an interview with Apostrophe.

    "First, we have the so-called Protocol on the Minsk Agreements implementation dated February 12, 2015, where in paragraph 10 it is stated that according to the Minsk Agreements the following should …

  • Russia: Introduction of peacekeepers in Donbas must be coordinated with DPR and LPR

    According to the Kremlin, the DPR’s (Donetsk People’s Republic) and LPR’s (Luhansk People’s Republic) consent must be one of the conditions for peacekeeping forces to be deployed in the Donbas.

    The Kremlin’s position was voiced by Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to the Russian president, RBC reports.

    “The conflict in south-eastern Ukraine is something to be negotiated primarily between Kyiv and the authorities of the unrecognized republics – LPR and DPR. This is, perhaps, the core modality …

  • Berlin: Germany supports deployment of peacekeepers throughout the Donbas

    The German government believes that a possible UN peacekeeping mission should be deployed throughout the Donbas region, and not just on the contact line, as stated by Deputy Speaker of the German government Ulrike Demmer while speaking to reporters in Berlin, Deutsche Welle reported.

    According to the spokesman, Berlin in general welcomes the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin to send a UN mission to the Donbas. However, Berlin is skeptical of some details of Moscow's proposal. …

  • German Foreign Ministry: Unacceptable for UN to involve separatists in negotiations about peacekeepers in Donbas

    It is unacceptable for the United Nations to involve separatists in the negotiation process on peacekeeping activity in the Donbas, said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer, UNIAN reports.

    “It is unacceptable and unheard of for the UN to involve separatists in the negotiation process on peacekeeping activity in any region,” Schaefer emphasized.

    According to him, it is inappropriate to talk only about the contact line, since the separatists obstruct the OSCE SMM in all Eastern …

  • Herashchenko: Ukraine knows the location of 88 prisoners out of 144 held captive by separatists

    The representative of Ukraine in the humanitarian sub-group of the Tripartite Contact Group for the settlement of the situation in the Donbas, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Iryna Herashchenko stated that Ukraine knows where 87 out of the 144 Ukrainian prisoners are held in the Donbas. However, according to her, the separatists have confirmed only 71 hostages, Radio Liberty reports.

    "In the last year, the key theme of all the meetings of the humanitarian subgroup has …

  • Separatist DPR puts forward its conditions for peacekeepers in Donbas

    The proposal of Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy peacekeepers to the Donbas should be discussed, stated the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Alexander Zakharchenko.

    According to Zakharchenko, the residents of the Donbas "like no one else are interested in the beginning of the process of settlement of our conflict with Kyiv." He also says that the DPR is ready to consider any initiatives while also putting forward their own.

    The head of the DPR asserted that the …

  • Putin: Supply of American weapons to Ukraine will not change the situation in Donbas

    The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, stated that the supply of US weapons to Ukraine, if such a decision is made, won’t change anything in the Donbas, as he told journalists at a press conference after the BRICS summit.

    “It is the sovereign decision of the United States to sell weapons or supply for free, and which country gets this help. We can’t influence this process, but there are common international rules and approaches. The supply of weapons to the conflict zone is not beneficial to …

  • Ukraine to change the name of its military operation in the Donbas

    The bill to reintegrate the Donbas will entail the introduction of the concept “Operation on Defense of Ukraine” instead of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). This was announced by Deputy Minister for the temporarily occupied territories Yuriy Hrymchak in an interview with Radio Svoboda.

    When asked to clarify whether the word “war” would be used for the operation, he responded in the negative, explaining that the term would mean declaring war on Russia with all the corresponding consequences. …

  • Ukraine names its conditions for the introduction of a peacekeeping mission in the Donbas

    Commenting on the statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin reading the peacekeeping mission in the Donbas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has named conditions the country considers necessary for the introduction of a peacekeeping mission to the Donbas. They include the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Donbas and the absence of Russian personnel in the mission.

    "Any international peacekeeping presence must be deployed by consent of and after extensive consultations with …

  • Russia submits its own resolution to UN Security Council on deploying peacekeepers in Donbas

    Russia has sent the head of the UN Security Council a draft resolution on bringing a peacekeeping mission to the Donbas, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya announced on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported.

    “Today we have sent the relevant draft resolution to the chairman of the UN Security Council and the secretary-general. We hope that soon it will be distributed among the council members. We intend to hold the relevant consultations on the expert level, and …