Kyiv prepares plan B for reintegration of Donbas
The Presidential Administration is working to achieve peace in the Donbas by the end of the year, stated the head of the president's office Andrii Yermak, as cited RBC-Ukraine.
If peace cannot be achieved within the specified time frame, Plan B will be used, as Kyiv will not wait for years if "that side does not want to stop the war," Yermak added.
"But by the end of the year we intend to do everything we can, and the increased work of the Trilateral Contact Group is proof of that. But we also have a well-designed plan B: what do we do if it is like this; what we do if it is not like this," Yermak said.
According to the official, the Ukrainian authorities want to hold local elections in October, including in the territory of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but "there will be no elections at gunpoint."
"First, we need control over the border, perhaps together with international institutions, we need security and only then elections," Yermak concluded.
Earlier, Yermak spoke about the new format of negotiations in Minsk. Representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ukrainian Parliament will also be included in the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk.
Yermak also said that starting from the next meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group, Ukraine will have representatives of displaced Donbas residents in its delegation in Minsk.