Alexey Pushkov: It is hard to imagine Donbass agreeing to unitary Ukraine

The key problem will be the status of the territories. This question, along with dividing lines, caused a lot of controversy during the Minsk talks, Chairman of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee Alexey Pushkov told Russia 24 TV channel.

“After all that happened, it is really hard to imagine Donbass agreeing to a status within unitary Ukraine. They in Kyiv say this can’t be either autonomy or federation, so, what can this be? The Minsk agreement does not say anything specific about the status. They just mentioned some special status, but what kind of a special status are they talking about? This uncertainty can cause quite serious contradictions,” Pushkov said.

He said that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko keeps saying that Ukraine can be only a unitary state. “But to me and to very many others, this as a non-realistic position,” Pushkov said.

As EAD reported earlier, the Russian, French, Ukrainian and German presidents met in Minsk on Feb 11-12 to negotiate ways to settle the crisis in Ukraine. As a result of their talks, they adopted a complex of measures to carry out the Minsk agreements and a declaration supporting these measures.

The presidents agreed on a comprehensive ceasefire starting from Feb 15, withdrawal of military hardware and exchange of POW. The Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics are supposed to stay within Ukraine and to conduct new elections.