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The Ukrainian leadership is giving the appearance that it is working in the Contact Group on settling the crisis in eastern Ukraine, but instead is doing nothing tangible at all, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on November 10th.
“The semblance of work in the Contact Group is being created [by the Kiev leadership]. I stress, not work, but the semblance of work. The meetings of the Contact Group’s specialist subgroups that took place yesterday yielded no results. <…> We do not hold out much hope for today’s plenary meeting either,” she said.
Zakharova also pointed to the statement by the new Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister on reintegration in terms of the Minsk agreements.
“Once Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Ukraine for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshchuk began to perform her duties in the Contact Group, she already indicated that the Minsk agreements for Ukraine are not a road map for settling the conflict in Donbass,” the diplomat said.
On November 9th, the meetings of subgroups took place on security, humanitarian and economic issues.
According to representatives of the republics of Eastern Ukraine, the meetings ended with no substantial results due to Kiev’s unwillingness to discuss problems.
The work of the subgroup on political issues was postponed to November 10th for organizational reasons. As the LPR delegation to the Minsk talks noted in its Telegram channel, the results of the work of the subgroups “leave little hope for the manifestation of constructiveness from the Ukrainian side in the upcoming negotiations.”.
Meanwhile, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said that US and NATO’s attempts to “test” the Russian military were a waste of time and resources.
“We are concerned that today’s meeting in Washington has taken place against the background of a sharp escalation in the Black Sea region. NATO’s naval and air forces are testing our army and fleet. This is a waste of time and effort,” he pointed out, according to the Russian embassy’s Facebook page.
According to the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership, the US plans to boost cooperation with Ukraine “in areas such as Black Sea security, cyber defense, and intelligence sharing.” The charter also says that Washington and Kiev will work to deepen “Ukraine’s integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions,” and highlights the United States’ commitment ” to the energy security of Ukraine.”
Antonov emphasized that the charter, full of catchwords, was aimed at escalating tensions.
Separately, Antonov said that any ambitions to see Kiev becoming a NATO member are unacceptable for Moscow and US plans to supply weapons to Kiev will only worsen the situation in southeastern Ukraine.
“Any ambitions to see Kiev becoming a member of NATO are unacceptable. Plans to deliver weapons to the Kiev regime will only worsen the situation in the southeast of Ukraine. In our opinion, another opportunity to make Kiev stop the war has been lost,” the envoy said, according to the embassy’s Facebook page. “I would like to stress that only full implementation of the Minsk, implying, inter alia, a special status of the peoples’ republics can calm things in the southeast of Ukraine and help revitalize regional and global security,” Antonov added.
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