Putin not to be ready for agreement on Donbass before presidential election in USA – analyst

No agreement will be reached to end the war in Donbass in the near future. Such an opinion was expressed by American professor, Atlantic Council analyst Andres Aslund in an interview with HB magazine, - UNIAN reports.

According to him, this is due to the scandal over the telephone conversation between the presidents of Ukraine and the USA and threat of impeachment of Donald Trump.

"Putin will not be ready to agree on anything in the Donbass if the USA does not directly or indirectly participate in the negotiations and does not fix its position. He did nothing for a year and a half because he was waiting for the election in Ukraine, and now it turns out that it is already unclear with whom to negotiate in the USA until the election of a new president, that is, until the beginning of 2021", - the analyst explained.

Aslund noted that this is bad for Zelensky, who "really wants progress in the negotiations as evidence of his effectiveness, but it is unlikely that something can be influenced here".

As previously reported, Zelensky reported on October 1 that the Ukrainian party at the negotiations of the TCG in Minsk responded to a letter from the OSCE Special Representative Martin Sajdik that it agreed on the so-called "Steinmeier formula". The accommodation of text of the "Steinmeier formula" caused public outcry, a picket took place near the Presidential Office on the same day in the evening.