Head of the Ukrainian presidential office Andriy Yermak has said he hopes that the leaders of the Normandy format states will meet in Berlin in 2020.
“I’m certain that the summit of the heads of state and governments of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia will be held in Berlin this year,” Yermak said in an interview with the German media group Funke.
Dialogue between Ukraine and Russia is continuing, although it is very difficult on some issues, Yermak said. An agreement on a comprehensive ceasefire was reached at the meeting of the Normandy Four leaders in Paris, but it has not been observed, he said.
Yermak also said Kyiv intends to make a list of its representatives of the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, who will participate in the talks of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in Minsk as invited parties.
These people are “representatives of NGOs, the religious sphere, journalists, citizens of Ukraine who don’t have Russian passports and who did not fight against Ukraine,” he said. “The six-year monopoly of the so-called people’s republics on the appointment of Donbas representatives should end,” Yermak said.
Yermak also said no one knows precisely now how many people are infected with coronavirus in Donbas, and therefore, the Ukrainian government has stopped letting people cross five checkpoints along the disengagement line.
