DPR and LPR leaders: No compromise with Kiev possible after Rada’s laws on Donbass status

No compromise with Kiev is any longer possible following the documents on the status of Donbass adopted by the Supreme Rada on March 17, heads of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky say in a joint statement published on March 18.   

“The DPR and the LPR claim that no compromise with Kiev is possible until yesterday’s disgraceful decisions of Poroshenko and the Supreme Rada are cancelled,” the statement says. “We agreed, though half-heartedly, to a special status of Donbass within renewed Ukraine despite the fact that our people want full independence. We did it to stop the brotherly bloodshed. But Ukraine has not changed. It is still being ruled by an oligarchic junta that does not care for people the way it was during the presidencies of Kuchma, Yushchenko and Yanukovych.”

“By denying a special status to Donbass, Kiev has trampled upon the fragile Minsk peace and brought the situation to a dead-end,” the two republics' leaders stress. They say that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk “have cynically laughed at their EU partners, who exerted so much effort” on the peace talks.

EAD reported previously that on March 16 the Ukrainian Parliament defined the areas to be given the special status but put off the provision of the status till elections in the region in accordance with Ukrainian laws. In the meantime, the DPR and the LPR are declared “temporarily occupied territories” on the radical MPs' initiative. Kiev also suggests deploying international peacekeepers in the conflict zone.  

In response, the leaders of the Donbass republics say that the Ukrainian authorities have violated Article 1 of the law on the special status of Donbass and three items of the Minsk agreements signed by Kiev. As regards the suggestion on deployment of peacekeepers, it violates “the logic of the peace plan” aimed at reaching a compromise.