"I would like new lawmakers in Kiev to start a constructive dialogue with representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk as soon as possible, and on the basis of this dialogue, to start - at last - adopting the legislation stipulated by the Minsk accords. In particular, the law on special status should come into force in full and the special status should become indefinite in accordance with the Steinmeier formula. The objective will require amending the constitution enshrining the special status and some other laws approved before," he told reporters.

MINSK, July 31. /TASS/. Russia hopes that Ukraine’s new authorities will start a constructive dialogue with Donbass republics in the near future and will adopt a law on their special status, Russia’s Plenipotentiary Representative Boris Gryzlov said on Wednesday after a regular round of talks of the Contact Group seeking peace for east Ukraine.

According to the Russian envoy to the Minsk peace talks, first sessions of the Verkhovna Rada parliament and its first decisions, including organizational and staffing ones, will be very indicative.

"I hope that the majority of Verkhovna Rada members will support the move towards resolution of the intra-Ukrainian crisis and will not make the same mistakes and commit the same crimes as Kiev’s former government. Now, the election race and pre-election promises have ended. We will see what the current Ukrainian president’s party is like and whether Kiev will put into practice the voters’ hopes or, on the contrary, will go ahead with a series of promises. [They] need meaningful decisions and tangible results concerning the implementation of the Minsk agreements," Gryzlov emphasized.

In 2015, in a bid to find a way out of the deadlock when Kiev was blocking a law granting special status to Donbass envisaged by the Minsk agreements, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the then German foreign minister, suggested a special procedure of its enforcement. It envisages implementing Ukrainian legislation on a special local self-government rule in some areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on the day of local elections in Donbass on a provisional basis first, and then after the publication of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s report on their results on a permanent basis. The idea, known as the ‘Steinmeier formula’, was approved by Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) in Paris on October 2, 2015.

Minsk agreements

Peace settlement of the conflict in Donbass rests on the Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, that was signed by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, after marathon 16-hour talks between the leaders of the Normandy Four nations, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. The 13-point document envisages a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people’s militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also lays out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and a constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.