DISINFO: Sabotage, imitation and profanity - what Ukraine is doing in the Donbas peace negotiation process
SUMMARY
Sabotage, imitation, profanity, and absurd new ideas from Kyiv – this is how things turn out on the negotiating platform on the Donbas issue. Meanwhile, the ongoing shelling of settlements in the Donbas led the head of the DPR to increase the combat readiness of all units.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the war in Ukraine, casting Ukraine as the sole responsible party for the implementation of the Minsk agreements. At the end of April 2020, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the Ukrainian side in the Trilateral Contact Group offered to hold negotiations in a video format so that negotiations could continue. “At the beginning of each week, we have a Minsk video-call. We want to move forward. Because it is the only thing that brings us closer to solving this issue globally," the Ukrainian President emphasised. Meanwhile, the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE recorded every day a different number of ceasefire violations from both sides on Donbas. Since 2014, negotiations with Russia to resolve the conflict in the Donbas have been held within the framework of the Normandy Format and the Minsk process. A special Trilateral contact group is working on a peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas. Three parties are involved in this process: representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE. Unofficially, representatives of the "LDNR" factions are also present. The second set of measures to implement the Minsk agreements was signed on 12 February 2015. The first paragraph of the document relates to an immediate ceasefire. Next, it is necessary to withdraw heavy weapons, ensure OSCE monitoring, release prisoners, grant Donbas special status and hold local elections, provide amnesty to the parties involved in the conflict and restore control over the Ukrainian-Russian border in the conflict zone. You can read other similar cases claiming that Ukraine does not fulfil key point of Minsk agreements on negotiation with the "LDNR" or that Ukraine broke the Minsk agreements by allowing the National Police on the contact line.