Zelensky abolished the delegation of Ukraine in the trilateral contact group

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree that effectively abolishes the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) to resolve the conflict in Donbass, such a document is published on the website of the President of the country.

In total, Zelensky canceled six decrees for 2020-2021 regarding the composition and work schedule of the delegation.

The trilateral contact group formed in the summer of 2014 (authorized by Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) in September of that year signed the first Minsk agreements, which ended the active part of the hostilities in southeastern Ukraine that had been going on since April of that year. The second Minsk agreements stopped the escalation of the conflict in February 2015 in the Debaltseve region. Since 2015, the Russian delegation has been headed by diplomat Boris Gryzlov, the Ukrainian one – by the first president of the country, Leonid Kravchuk, dead May 10 this year.

The Minsk package of measures included a ceasefire in the southeast of the country, the withdrawal of weapons, an amnesty, the resumption of economic ties, as well as a constitutional reform in Ukraine. February 22, 2022, two days before the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin declaredthat the Minsk agreements were “killed” by the Kyiv authorities long before Moscow recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Since the beginning of the special operation, Russia and Ukraine have held negotiations several times. The first three face-to-face meetings took place in Belarus: on February 28, representatives of Russia and Ukraine met in the Gomel region, and then on March 3 and 6, negotiations continued in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The fourth round of the Russian-Ukrainian dialogue took place on March 29 in Istanbul. But later the process was frozen. On May 17, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said that Ukraine had actually withdrawn from the negotiations.

On August 26, the head of Zelensky’s office, Mikhail Podolyak declaredthat the President of Ukraine opposes negotiations. According to Podolyak, in the current situation they will become a “death sentence” for Ukraine.

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