National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danylov has voiced positions which President Zelenskyy is going to uphold at the forthcoming Paris meeting on December 9. According to Danylov, the Ukrainian leadership understands only too well with what agenda they should go to the meeting of leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.

The first item of the agenda will be the return of Ukrainian prisoners. “To our deep regret, it is a question of hundreds rather than dozens of people who are currently held captive”, noted Danylov. The second important matter involves a ceasefire along the entire frontline. “We have no, let’s say, big desire to see Ukrainian citizens to be killed on a daily basis. We must stop it”, stressed the National Security and Defense Council Secretary. As for the third issue that the Ukrainian party is going to bring up at the upcoming Normandy Four meeting, it will deal with the Russian-Ukrainian State Border. “Until the Ukrainian border is not restored and until the Ukrainian military are not deployed there, it will be extremely difficult, I’d say, even next to impossible for many processes to continue”, Danylov went on to say.

In the words of the Secretary of the NSDC, preparations for the Normandy Four meeting are in full swing. The President regularly meets with the military and officials from various branches of power to hold discussions and consultations. “I am confident that the position of Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be the position of the President of Ukraine. And believe me there will be no steps toward capitulation or any other actions that may contradict national interests of our State”, assured Danylov.

While preparing for the Paris meeting, the President of Ukraine had a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on November 28. “In the last couple of months it is the seventh conversation held by the two leaders. We in Ukraine highly appreciate the support of our German friends”, said Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Andrei Melnyk.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that he stood for continuing a dialog with the Russian Federation in order not to worsen the situation in Ukraine. He asked rhetorical questions, “Would the absence of a dialog with Russia make the European continent more safe? Would our interests and our stability benefit from our not doing anything about frozen conflicts and allowing the situation in Ukraine to get worse? I do not think so”, said Macron and added that the dialog with Russia was in the interests of peace and stability in Europe. “And we are working on that. Together with Chancellor Merkel we will conduct the Normandy Four summit on December 9 so that our work on the implementation of the Minsk Agreements will go on”, assured the President of France.

Dmitri Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian President, warns not to expect too much from the forthcoming summit of the leaders of the Normandy Four. At the same time, the Russian mass media quoted Peskov as saying, “There’s every reason to hope that a substantial conversation will take place”. Besides, Yuri Ushakov, an aid to the Russian President, told journalists that after the December 9 summit in Paris the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine could conduct a separate meeting. It was in fact the first statement made after the Kremlin’s long period of “uncertainty” concerning the possibility of holding such a meeting.

The newspaper Holos Ukrainy