Verkhovna Rada First Deputy Chairperson / President's Envoy for Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donbas / Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup within the trilateral contact group for Donbas conflict settlement Iryna Heraschenko delivered her opening speech at the meeting.
Editor-in-chief of The Economist Edward Lucas and journalist Yevhen Kiseliov reported latest internal developments in the aggressor-country — Russia — and the consequences related to the problems of the Russian Federation.
Edward Lucas said that the Soviet Union's share in the world's GDP was 10%, Russia currently occupies only 0.7% while NATO's stake is USD 40 trillion. He said that President Putin has a group of people absolutely committed to doing anything for his sake. He noted that Putin hopes that the whole world is sick and tired of the confrontation with Russia and that it distracts attention from Ukraine. Mr. Lucas deems Putin is likely to use such topics as unstable situation in Caucasus and the referendum in Britain to distract attention from his actions. He noted that should Putin start feeling certain power and level-headedness in the rest of the world, he would immediately begin thinking twice before doing anything wrong. According to him every time when the West tries to pacify Putin, the Russian President senses it as the West's weakness. "Such pacification costs much for the countries like Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. We have to be careful with our actions as we must not sacrifice anyone," Edward Lucas concluded.
Journalist Yevhen Kyseliov expressed confidence that the West has understood what real Russia is. He reminded that before the war no one could even imagine that Mr. Lucas' predictions would come true. He noted that Putin's most cherished dream is to remain in office until the end of his life.
The meeting participants discussed the issue of ongoing conflicts, inter alia in Caucasus, Moldova and Belarus.
According to director of LINKS Dennis Sammut, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is one of such conflicts. He believes that Putin manipulates the region to achieve his goals. He said although Abkhasia and Ossetia assure of their friendship with Russia, however, there is no practical evidence for that.
He said the Kremlin always changes its policy towards Ossetia.
In speaking of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr. Sammut said that Russia is the party interested in the settlement of the conflict, however, on the other hand does its best to prolong it. "Thus, Azerbaijan and Armenia do not need Moscow. The war showed the limitedness of the Kremlin's strategy. Armenia once took the sides with Russia to protect itself from the Turkic's world, however, they soon realized that the Russia's military bases in Armenia were not meant to protect the Armenians," he said.
Dennis Sammut added that at present, Moscow introduces the Lavrov's idea — so-called Madrid Light (partial withdrawal of troops), but to return some regions they had to deploy the troops on the conflict territory, however, Azerbaijan refused. He said the two parties understood their weaknesses.
"We have to understand that every conflict cannot be settled without Russia in view of their imperial aspirations. If the principles of territorial integrity is the basis, the international diplomatic efforts have to feed upon the international law. Over the years, I've heard lots of criticism of NATO, however, I have never heard there are some to be unwilling to develop," he concluded.