Representatives of the Russian Federation do not show a desire to take responsibility for the reached agreements and continue playing the role of mediators at the meetings of the Tripartite Contact Group; they don't act like participants of the negotiations.
This was written by Serhiy Garmash, a member of the TCG and a Donetsk resident, after a regular TCG meeting on Wednesday, November 25.
According to him, it was the toughest meeting of the TCG in recent times. "Today at the TCG meeting, in response to Kravchuk’s request to officially present to the TCG an action plan from the Russian delegation, or to submit an ORDLO plan on behalf of the Russian delegation, Gryzlov said that if they had such a plan, it would be Russia's intervention in domestic affairs of Ukraine, which Russia, of course, cannot do,” he said. According to Garmash, Russia suggested considering the proposals put forward by Moscow's representatives from the occupied territories, although they are not a party to the negotiations.
"I am also a representative of the ORDLO, but I do not want to have anything to do with what the representatives of ORDLO invited to the talks by the Russian delegation," he stressed.
Garmash also stated that if Russia is interested in resolving the conflict, it must formally send a peace plan as a member of the TCG. "But Moscow has its own logic," he stated.
In addition, Serhiy Garmash claimed that the OSCE serves as the Kremlin’s instrument rather than a mediator and moderator.
“OSCE representatives do not notice the statements of the Russian-side ORDLO representatives when they call themselves some a “republic" ... The OSCE tries not to see us, ORDLO representatives from Ukraine, at all, although our status is not lower than that of invited by the Russian delegation from the occupied territories. For some reason, the OSCE interprets the Minsk agreements and the concept of TCG exclusively in the Moscow perspective," said a participant of the TCG meeting.
According to "Apostrophe", on Tuesday, November 24, during a meeting of the political subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for the peaceful settlement of the Donbas conflict, Russia's representative in the TCG Alexei Dmitrievsky supported the action plan proposed by ORDLO.