Moscow does not intend to discuss the Donbas issue with Kyiv, stating that this is not a matter of bilateral relations between Russia and Ukraine. Director of the Second Department of the CIS Countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexey Polishchuk stated this in an interview with one of the Russian media outlets.
"We have never refused bilateral contacts with Kyiv on Russian-Ukrainian relations at any level. But the conflict in Donbas is not part of the bilateral agenda. This is an internal Ukrainian conflict, and Kyiv needs to discuss its settlement with Donetsk and Luhansk, as written in the "Package of measures", and not with Moscow" - the Russian official tried to remove responsibility from the Kremlin once again.
As previously reported, Russia supports occupation authorities of the Donbas with weapons, ammunition, military equipment and personnel on a permanent basis. Russia is also categorically opposed to monitoring a section of the state border uncontrolled by Ukraine, through which convoys of military equipment and armed Russian troops regularly enter the occupied Donbas. Russian officers under cover and under fictitious names actually lead all the units of the so-called "people's militias of the republics". In 2014 and 2015, it was the invasion of the regular armed forces of the Russian Federation that prevented the complete elimination of the "DNR/LNR" armed formations. Many politicians in Russia do not hide this fact, calling the intervention against Ukraine "the north wind".
In a joint statement by 46 UN countries on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it is argued that Russia is a party to the conflict in the Donbas, and not a mediator.