there are two kinds of people in ukraine there's one side which sympathizes with moscow yes there is and wants ukraine to make a unilateral compromise there's another side which wants ukraine to hold its red lines and make russia agree to its terms this is a much bigger number this afternoon i interviewed two individuals who represent these opposite sides olgat tukaryuk an independent journalist based in kiev and andhri telizenko he's a political consultant and a former diplomat here's what they told me andre my first question is to you there's a lot of talk about diplomacy delivering it's been a hectic week of meetings but the eu foreign policy chief mr borel has said that while emmanuel macron has not uh achieved a miracle there is a sense of detained do you agree with that assessment yeah there is a possibility of a breakthrough if that agreement which macron president macron reached moscow and here in kiev will be reached tomorrow during the normandy talks in berlin and with uh experts and advisors with the normandy format so basically we will see tomorrow if there will be a breakthrough or there will be other negotiations happening which ukraine will not basically accept the deal which macron was presented to kiev here after visiting moscow so this is the main thing we have to look for tomorrow negotiations and if they won't have a breakthrough we'll see mr schultz who is a council of shirts visit to kiev they may have something new to bring to the table which will be the last resort of diplomacy here in this area of nonsense which is happening here in kiev uh the russians have sort of poured cold water over what president macron said and said that there is no de-escalation happening at this point do you expect a breakthrough not really unfortunately russia has shown uh numerous occasions that is not willing to implement its provisions that it should implement on the minsk agreements and these are provisions that are related to the security part and i mean here ceasefire and effective ceasefire not just this is fire on paper also withdrawal of its troop and military equipment and the return of the border to under ukrainian control russia has also been unwilling to let the osce mission in donbass full access to uh to do their monitoring mission so unfortunately it is russia that is not delivering on the on the minsk agreements but instead it insists and it tries to put pressure also on france and germany who are part of the normandy format to put pressure on ukraine so that ukraine implements the political part the elections and the special status for the bus first before the security part is implemented by russia so i really don't believe there could be a breakthrough until the kremlin changes its position on this and the kremlin has shown no signs of changing its position we also know that the current ukrainian president is not a huge fan of the minsk accords uh given this situation do you expect a breakthrough and shoot do you think that uh the western allies of ukraine are essentially building pressure as olga said on kiev to offer unilateral concessions basically today zolansky's seen that he doesn't support the minsk agreements which he signed during the paris a meeting of normandy format in 2019 the paris communique basically signed his signature on during those agreements and i had the form of shunmeyer also implemented in that equal community case we have to basically it was implement what we signed that's our way of uniting ukraine and we had a chance to do it within the last couple years to change the format to add additional steps to it to basically win the minds of people in donbas and lugan's peaceful way which we didn't do anything within the last eight years now we have a peace deal on the table and we have to take it because it will unite ukraine today the negotiations are talking about not only the main steps of uh the uh stopping the shooting and also they're talking about having sending electricity from ukraine to lugansk and donetsk also stopping the sniper rifle shootings which are causing the both most deaths in that region it's a failed ceasefire agreement you're calling it a peace deal it's a field ceasefire agreement which after provocations from both sides were happening we have to understand the shootings which are happening right now the main deaths are happening from the sniper shootings on both sides of the table and we have a problem of the reminding of the of the area which has to be done within the that's the also a step which they're going to talk about tomorrow in berlin if ukraine will go forward with these steps of stopping the shootings of sniper rifles stopping the the mining agreement and then we have the starting of electricity sending to eastern uh ukraine we have to take those steps to unite ukraine and talk with the oc and talk with our people in eastern ukraine to have a peace here because if we will continue to negotiate for another 30 years we're going to lose more and more citizens here and ukraine will be a failed state because while we have war while we have a conflict there no progress can be done in a country that's the main issue we have to stop the fighting we have to make peace and have a consensus that's diplomacy that's diplomacy uh olga we know what russia wants and now we see that ukraine's partners in the west in europe and nato are also sort of saying that go back to the minsk agreement as he says it's a peace deal what options does ukraine have does it have the luxury to take a tougher line and say we are not going to make these unilateral concessions yeah well i just first want to comment on what my interlocutor just said i think the audience has to know that this person has been sanctioned by the united states and also by ukraine for his connections to andrei der kach who is believed to be russian uh have links to russian intelligence officers you know so we should really question whether he represents here the point of view of that it is it is his point of view i just want your comments and the question it's just that i think your audience has to know that okay and uh on the question you asked i think uh one of the problems with the minsk agreements and again an illustration why russia is unwilling to uh you know implement its part of it uh uh is that the fact that russia has been handing over a russian passports on the occupied and bus on a massive scale so basically now uh between 600 000 and 1 million people in the occupied territories of ukraine are russian citizens and you know this is a very clear illustration that russia doesn't really want you know to pursue uh peace agreement and for ukraine it's also a tricky question because uh if ukraine goes forward you know with implementing the political part uh these are now russian citizens and uh the fact also that's absolutely not true that ukraine was violating the ceasefire it was ukraine that unilaterally declared that that's all fine but what options does kiev have at this point when everyone is telling them to go back to the minsk accords well cave has to hold to its red lines and the red lines are that there can be no compromises on the ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity that the security provisions of the minsk agreements need to be implemented first and that the west actually should use the leverage it has over russia to push russia to make first steps towards the diplomatic solution yeah i'll get back to what i've been sanctioned for i've been sanctioned by the us government for supporting trump i was a witness in the senate the investigation committee of homeland security and finance within the united states and was said to be not any russian spy or connected to their catch and even though trump after trump lost basically the last week i got sanctioned so and our government because it doesn't have any sovereignty it sanctioned me which i'm suing right now in the supreme court of ukraine the president of ukraine and the court did take my case into consideration and it is in process so any political allegations against me i was a diplomat i'm i was a government official in the ukraine government i'm a patriot of my country and i want peace for my country and that's the main thing i want blood stop to stop the bloodshed first of all and you talk to a lot of diplomats here who are not working in the government who are able to talk they won't be afraid to say that they want peace also that is the main thing here to unite our country and to have peace and stop the bloodshed indeed interesting times but thanks very much both of you for sharing your thoughts yes veon is now available in your country download the app now and get all the news on the move
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