Paris, Moscow Agree Donbass Should Get Special Status – Russian Ambassador

PARIS (Sputnik) – The French and Russian authorities have made different assessments of the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, but both states proceed from the assumption that Donbass should be granted a special status on a permanent basis, the Russian ambassador to France said Thursday.

"We differently assess the causes and driving forces of the Ukrainian crisis. It seems to me that in France and, in general, in the West, they do not fully understand its inner springs and do not want to admit that Crimea’s secession and the uprising in Donbass were a natural and forced response of the Russian and Russian-speaking population of Ukraine to the unconstitutional ascent to power in Kiev of Ukrainian nationalist forces," Alexander Orlov told RIA Novosti in an interview.

The Russian and French governments are actively working to find a peaceful solution to the conflict within the framework established at the initiative of French President Francois Hollande, the so-called Normandy format, which encompasses France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, he noted.

"Both in Moscow and in Paris, as far as I know, they proceed from the assumption that Donbass should receive a special status, on a permanent, guaranteed basis in accordance with the Minsk agreements, approved by the UN Security Council resolution," the ambassador stressed.

In February 2015, the Normandy quartet's leaders brokered the Minsk peace deal, later signed by representatives of Kiev and the eastern Ukrainian militias. The Minsk agreements stipulate a ceasefire, weapons withdrawals from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, constitutional reforms to decentralize power in the country, and the granting of a special status to the Donbas region.

The sides failed to fulfill the agreements by the end of 2015, as initially intended. The Normandy Quartet agreed to extend its deadline for completion into the current year.