“Ukraine does not intend to include into its Constitution the special status of the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” said Ukrainian Prime Minister for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksii Reznikov in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

According to Reznikov, the Russian representatives in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for peaceful settlement in the Donbas are constantly trying to raise the question about the inclusion of the special status of the Donbas into the Ukrainian Constitution.

"They ask every session: "Will Ukraine include a special status in the Constitution?" We always say no, never, never, we don’t have to, we will not, forget about it," he said.

Reznikov noted that each time he urges the Russians to go back to the notes from past meetings of the TCG, at which this issue had already been raised. According to Reznikov, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has already talked about it in Paris.

Reznikov added that the representatives of Russia smile, receiving a refusal once again, because they know what the answer to their question will be, but they do not stop asking it all the time.

According to Reznikov, Russia is also trying to change its status in the Minsk agreements and turn the war in eastern Ukraine into an "internal conflict," but the Ukrainian side does not intend to back down from the definition of "international military conflict."

"The Russian side is playing the game of "we are mediators here." They have a stamp, they are constantly trying to put it in the documents -"internal conflict in the South-East of Ukraine", - Reznikov said.

He noted that the Ukrainian side sees this and recommends the Russian to remember the January resolution of the PACE, which talks about the obligations to withdraw Russian troops from the Donbas.

The last meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on the peaceful settlement of the situation in the Donbas took place on March 25.

  Donbas, Trilateral Contact Group, Ukraine, Russia

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