Donbas to Get “Special Status of Administrative Management”

The “special status” phrasing for Donbas status definition could be replaced by “special regime of administrative management,” the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Tripartite Contact Group Leonid Kravchuk states.

He believes this definition would comply with Ukraine’s legislation.

“We propose to introduce other definitions instead of the general one: ‘special status.’ The law of Ukraine on the war and peace in Donbas is ready now. We ask to understand us and implement the definition of ‘special regime of administrative management.’ That corresponds to the ongoing reforms of local self-government in Ukraine and our laws. Meanwhile, the task to enshrine all this in the Constitution, as it sometimes sounds from the Russian side, is unrealistic now,” Kravchuk stressed.

He noted that it is impossible now to collect so many votes in Verkhovnaya Rada to accept the law on “special status” of Donbas. Besides, all parties should look for a position “that meets the interests but does not place Ukraine in a position of non-performance.”

To recap, at the beginning of July, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation President Administration Dmitry Kozak noted that Russia expected Ukraine to prepare the draft amendments to the Constitution which provide Donbas with a “special status.” In retaliation, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky declared that no one might require anything of Ukraine.

Bohdan Marusyak