Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on ending the Kremlin’s war in the eastern Donbas region have shown few results so far.
And don’t expect them any time soon — unless Ukraine makes concessions on local elections, according to former President Leonid Kravchuk.
Ukraine will hold elections on Oct. 25 in every city, town and small village in the country — except in the Russian-occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and Crimea. In July, the Verkhovna Rada formalized this decision with a resolution.
But Russia and the militants it backs in the Donbas want the vote to take place in the occupied territories.
“Today it is clear during all meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group. Every issue that is under discussion butts up against one thing: Russia and (the militants) officially state that, until the Verkhovna Rada’s resolution is changed, they will block all (other) issues,” Kravchuk, who leads Ukraine’s delegation to the group, told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on Sept. 20.
“We need to find the answers to all questions,” he added.
Difficult decision
On Aug. 22, Kravchuk asked the Ukrainian parliament to kill one paragraph of the resolution on local elections that Russian militants in the occupied Donbas want to eliminate.
That paragraph states that local elections can only be held in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and Crimea after the full deoccupation of the territory and once Ukraine regains control over its border with Russia.
According to Kravchuk, Russian authorities and militants in the occupied Donbas demand that Ukraine bring the election resolution in line with the Minsk peace agreements. Otherwise, they will block the Minsk peace process.
“After analyzing the resolution and the law, I asked the Verkhovna Rada to bring it into line and move forward, otherwise everything will stop,” Kravchuk said at the time.
Ex-President Leonid Kravchuk speaks at the president’s office building in Kyiv on July 30, 2020. Kravchuk has agreed to lead Ukraine’s delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk. (president.gov.ua)
However, Parliament Speaker Dmytro Razumkov opposed the idea, as it had “nothing in common with the Minsk agreements.”
For more on the Minsk agreements, read our explainer.
“Today, any changes to this resolution will call into question the legitimacy of holding elections throughout the country, since it would be against current legislation,” Razumkov said on Sept. 19 during a talk show on the Ukraina 24 TV channel.
The Ukrainian government believes that holding elections in the eastern Donbas before the full deoccupation of the area would legitimize the militants who de facto rule the region.
On Sept. 18, Andriy Yermak, chief of staff of President Volodymyr Zelensky, also stressed that elections cannot be held on the occupied territories.
Read more – Yermak: Elections in Donbas can only be held after full deoccupation
