The head of the political council of the Ukrainian party Opposition Platform – For Life, Viktor Medvedchuk has informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of his impressions from his meetings at the European Parliament.
“I would like to share my impressions from visiting the European Parliament yesterday, particularly the fact that, on behalf of our political force, I presented a peace plan, aspects of a peaceful settlement and the termination of hostilities, which is based completely on the Minsk Agreements and which reflects the Minsk Agreements,” Medvedchuk said at a meeting with Putin.
Medvedchuk said newly-elected European parliamentarians attended the meeting. “This all involved the desire and resolve of these people [European parliamentarians] to make sure that peace is established in Ukraine and the fighting in the southeastern part of the country is ended,” he said.
The Opposition Platform – For Life’s program objective is the restoration of economic relations with Russia, he said.
“Our political force is actively establishing dialogue, and one of the program objectives facing our party is the restoration of economic relations with Russia,” Medvedchuk said.
“You know that we had meetings with the top government officials, the head of the government, Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, we also met with the State Duma leadership, and we met with the Gazprom management, where we reached agreement on Russia’s proposal that the price for gas would be cut by 25 percent in case of direct supplies. You later confirmed publicly that such an agreement does exist,” he said addressing Putin.
This option is bound to ease the burden of payments for housing and utilities on Ukrainian households, he said.
Medvedchuk said his dialogue with European parliamentarians from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria and Slovakia was productive.
Medvedchuk said his plan contained proposals that can change the situation for the better and fully implement the Minsk Agreements. “Our primary objective is to return the people rather than territories through their desire to return, and we call it ‘returning Donbas to Ukraine and Ukraine to Donbas’,” he said.
The European parliamentarians asked a lot of questions about relations between Russia and Ukraine within the framework of a peace process, and their interest was not artificial but sincere, Medvedchuk said. “This was a productive conversation. And the most important thing that European parliamentarians mentioned is that this was the moment when the monopoly of the war party, which existed during Mr. Poroshenko’s presidency [former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko], was ended,” he said.
Medvedchuk said his visit to the European Parliament put an end to a monopoly on providing information on the situation in Ukraine. “European parliamentarians yesterday heard the viewpoint of a different part of Ukraine, a viewpoint of the peace party, a viewpoint on how we should act today for peace to come indeed,” he said.
He said he was encouraged by the reaction of European parliamentarians.
“There are a lot of people at the European Parliament who are not simply interested and not simply know the situation, but who even know Ukraine’s history, which astounded me. When they introduced me and announced what I was going to say, they mentioned some historical facts that I don’t think all Ukrainian citizens know,” he said.
Medvedchuk said he was sure that that meeting would be a substantial step toward settling the conflict in Ukraine.
