“I do not expect America to become a part of this process, because Russia is against it, and I think Germany and France are also against it. In my opinion, this is not a tragedy for Ukraine, this format did not give anything for solving the problem of Russian aggression in Ukraine “, – said the diplomat.
He believes that the reason for this is Moscow’s reluctance to withdraw Russian troops from Donbass.
“When Russia is ready, it will talk with America, because it understands that America plays a key role in this. The Minsk format is important for only one reason: in connection with it, the European Union applies sanctions against Russia, and this is in Ukraine’s favor,” noted Herbst.
According to him, Russia expects to “put pressure on Ukraine” with the help of the Minsk format.
“Again, France and Germany consider this to be their game, not the American one. They are ready, of course, to be in contact with us in the Minsk format, but they don’t want us to be at the table. For Ukraine, this is not important yet, since this process has achieved nothing, “Herbst explained.
In 2014, Russia occupied Crimea and launched an armed aggression in eastern Ukraine. The fighting is between the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the one hand and the Russian army and Russian-backed militants who control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the other. Officially, the Russian Federation does not recognize its invasion of Ukraine, despite the facts and evidence presented by Ukraine.
Negotiations on the settlement of the conflict in Donbass are being held in the trilateral contact group in Minsk (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE), as well as in the Normandy format – with the participation of representatives of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia.
On the need to involve representatives of Ukraine in the United States negotiations announced at the beginning of 2015… The fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said in 2017 that the negotiation process coordinated with the USA.
In October 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia is not against the involvement of the United States in the Normandy format… After the current President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in 2020 confirmed the country’s desire to involve the United States in the negotiation process, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the participation of the American side in the negotiations on Donbass “we are not talking”.
Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Alexey Reznikov considers it quite acceptable US participation both in the Normandy format and in the work of the trilateral contact group.
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