DPR and LPR envoys: Special status of the republics should be stipulated by Ukraine’s constitution

The guarantees of the special status of Donbass should be fixed in Ukraine’s Constitution, the envoys of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics to the Contract Group for Peaceful Settlement of the Conflict in the East of Ukraine Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Dainego said on Monday.

“The Ukrainian authorities keep simulating fulfillment of the Minsk agreements. The laws they are adopting as measures to fulfill the agreements, in reality, run contrary to them. None of the constitutional amendments President Poroshenko has submitted to the Supreme Rada has been coordinated with us and all of them are contrary to the Minsk agreements,” Pushilin and Dainego said.

One example is the bill on local elections, already approved by the Supreme Rada in the first reading and to be considered in the second reading on Tuesday. “This bill should have been discussed in Minsk and should have been coordinated with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. It is contrary to what we discussed in Minsk, particularly, to the agreements on non-participation of political parties in majority voting,” Pushilin and Dainego said.

In this light, they urged Speaker of the Supreme Rada Volodymyr Groysman, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and President Petro Poroshenko to stop breaking the basic points of the Minsk agreements and to start fulfilling their obligations to settle the situation in Donbass peacefully.