For the seventh year now, the main achievement of Ukrainian independence has been the fact that the authorities of Ukraine (no matter who the President is at a particular moment) have not made any concessions to Russia with regard to its scenario of the so-called peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas. Thus, all analysts maintain that prior the meeting of the Normandy Four that was held last December, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a firm wish to end the war in Donbas.
The office of the President makes it clear that the Kremlin is not going to take any concrete steps in order to solve the Donbas issue. On the contrary, it poses itself as “a dove of peace” or “a mediator” that has allegedly nothing to do with an armed intervention and occupation of certain areas in eastern Ukraine.
Of interest is the fact that the Russian President discusses the Normandy Four agenda only with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and deliberately excludes Ukrainian President Zelenskyy from a dialog.
And he does this for a reason. In the opinion of analysts, Putin wants to show his Ukrainian counterpart that he is not going to meet him or communicate with him until Kyiv agrees with the Kremlin’s agenda. As a matter of fact, this agenda has long been known to Donbas. More than this, the Kremlin leader voiced it once again during his final press conference one of these days. The Kremlin insists on direct talks between Kyiv and the puppet governments of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
Why is Moscow so adamant about such talks? Vitaliy Portnikov, a reputable observer, claims that the purpose of Putin’s actions is not at all to bring the war to the end and restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine. “He seeks to turn Russia from a participant in the conflict and an aggressor into a mediator. That’s why he communicates within the Normandy Format only with Merkel and Macron. As if he wants to say, ‘You are mediators and I am a mediator too‘”, wrote Portnikov.
The statement made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week only confirms Portnikov’s conclusion. According to Lavron, Kyiv must establish a direct dialog with Donbas and stop trying to politicize the situation there and begin to solve all questions through the mediation of Moscow, Berlin and Paris.
In response to this statement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted that he wouldn’t mind if Ukraine was moved to the other part of the planet where it would not need to coexist with Russia. But Ukraine must live with constant threat from the aggressive northern neighbor. “It is impossible to change geography. That’s why we must learn how to coexist with Russia which we know”, said Kuleba. He does not share optimistic hopes of those people who claim that after Putin resigns from power Russia will radically change and relations between the two countries will considerably improve.
“We must stop the war and restore our territorial integrity. But at the same time we understand that Russia will not change and its destructive strategic aims regarding Ukraine will not change too. So, the principle of peaceful coexistence is in the interests of Ukraine”.
Dmytro Kuleba noted, “Our long-term goal is to see when Russia finally realizes the inevitability of Ukrainian independence and sovereignty, Ukraine’s existence as a part of the Western world, a member of NATO and the European Union. Only then we will be able to move to the principle of coexistence when we will be able to simply “tolerate each other”. And only after that we will be able to look further”.
The newspaper Holos Ukrainy
