“Donetsk has not changed its position in the negotiations and the DPR’s agenda will remain the same,” the Donetsk News Agency quoted Denis Pushilin as saying.
A new round of talks of the so-called Contact Group on the Ukraine reconciliation, comprising representatives of Kiev, independence supporters, Moscow and the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE), is scheduled to take place in Minsk on December 21. However, Pushilin noted that the meeting in Minsk should be rescheduled for December 22 or 23.
On December 17, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics announced they were ready to exchange prisoners, but Kiev's representatives did not respect their side of the deal agreed upon by the Contact Group negotiating the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis in Minsk in September.
In mid-November, Poroshenko signed a decree imposing an economic blockade on eastern Ukraine and withdrawing all state-funded health, educational and social protection organizations from the Donbas region.
