Poroshenko: 'The Russians do not need Donbass. I think they are ready to leave.'
President Petro Poroshenko, in an interview with Le Figaro, called the conflict in the Donbas a decisive one.
He said this while discussing his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I think that he [Trump] is paying special attention to Ukraine. Why? Because among all the international problems that he faces, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, the conflict in eastern Ukraine is easy to resolve. The Russians don’t need the Donbas. I think they are ready to leave,” said Poroshenko, as quoted by inosmi.ru.
At the same time, the Ukrainian president admitted that Putin is “completely unpredictable” and no one knows what to expect from him.
“If they had told me earlier that he would want to annex the Crimea and attack the Donbas, I wouldn’t have believed it. This is simply because this war is not in his best interests. The only person in the world who knows what Vladimir Putin will do in the coming months is Vladimir Putin himself,” said Poroshenko.
On June 26th, during negotiations with Poroshenko, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a de-occupation plan for the Donbas, the content of which is still unknown.
According to the deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Konstantin Yeliseyev, the “Macron formula” suggests moving forward in small but concrete steps towards full implementation of the Minsk agreements.