Ukraine has several plans of action on Donbas in case of deadlock in negotiations - Harmash

Ukraine has several plans of action for the Donbas in case of a deadlock in the negotiations of the Trilateral Contact Group. Their implementation will depend on the policies of the newly elected U.S. President Joe Biden. Representative of the Ukrainian delegation in the Donbas TCG Serhiy Harmash told this on the air of the Ukraine 24 TV channel, commenting on the words of head of the delegation Leonid Kravchuk, about the Ukrainian "plan B".

"A meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, where five plans were developed without clear numbering, took place a year ago. They are, let us say, horizontal. Their application is possible in a specific situation. If the most favorable situation for a plan is formed, then it will be activated. To say that Plan A did not work - it was President Zelensky who saw peace in the eyes of Putin, and now he realized that it was not peace, but a glimpse of spotlights in the eyes of the president of a neighboring country", - the TCG participant said.

Harmash explained what factors will influence Ukraine's actions: "The Minsk process and the issue of resolving the conflict in Donbas is a matter of the Ukrainian-Russian war, it lies in the context of big geopolitics. Plan B will probably depend on the first steps of the Biden administration, will depend on what changes will be in Europe, including with coronavirus, because this will affect the economic situation in the world and in Russia".

In his opinion, peacekeepers and the international provisional administration would be the most compromise option for resolving this conflict, especially for the population of the occupied part of Donbas. However, he still sees no reason to implement such a scenario.

Commenting on the possibility of Western sanctions against Russia in the form of its disconnection from the SWIFT international payment system, the TCG member stated: "I think the Kremlin today is afraid of any economic pressure, since the Russian economy is very weak… The idea can be realistic if it is supported by our Western partners. It will make Russia really more accommodating".

Let us recall that head of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG Leonid Kravchuk had stated that the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine could approve Plan B on the Donbas in early 2021.

Earlier, director of the International Center for Countering Russian Propaganda Yuriy Kochevenko had stated on the air of the Ukraine 24 TV channel that the imperial ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Donbas collapsed.