MOSCOW, November 10. /TASS/: The Ukrainian leadership is giving the appearance that it is working in the Contact Group on settling the crisis in eastern Ukraine, however Moscow doesn’t hold any hopes for a meeting of its specialized subgroups, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported on Wednesday.
"The semblance of work in the Contact Group is being created [by the Kiev leadership]. I stress, not work, but the semblance of work. The meetings of the Contact Group's specialist subgroups that took place yesterday yielded no results. <...> We do not hold out much hope for today's plenary meeting either," she said.
Zakharova also pointed to the statement by the new Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister on reintegration in terms of the Minsk agreements. "Once Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Ukraine for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshchuk began to perform her duties in the Contact Group, she already indicated that the Minsk agreements for Ukraine are not a road map for settling the conflict in Donbass," the diplomat said.
On Tuesday, the meetings of subgroups took place on security, humanitarian and economic issues. According to representatives of the republics of Donbass, the meetings ended with no substantial results due to Kiev’s unwillingness to discuss problems. The work of the subgroup on political issues was postponed to Wednesday for organizational reasons. As the LPR delegation to the Minsk talks noted in its Telegram channel on Wednesday, the results of the work of the subgroups "leave little hope for the manifestation of constructiveness from the Ukrainian side in the upcoming negotiations.".
