Leaders of self-proclaimed republics not to attend Minsk meeting of Contact Group

MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. The heads of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics (DPR and LPR), Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky, will not attend the meeting of the Contact Group on May 6 in Minsk because no breakthrough decisions are expected at the talks, DPR People’s Council (parliament) speaker Andrey Purgin said Tuesday.

"A working process at the level of subgroups will start in Minsk at best. Actually, that’s why not DPR and LPR leaders but plenipotentiary representatives and experts went there. In particular, the DPR will be represented by official representative in the Contact Group Denis Pushilin and some 10 more people," Purgin said in an interview with the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta to be published Wednesday.

He said the exact agenda of tomorrow’s meeting has not been defined yet, adding that it will become known at the site.

"Besides, we were not the initiators of that meeting. We are the invited party. We are going there with our own vision of how problems should be solved, and Ukrainian representatives are going there with their own vision of that," Purgin said.

"Experts in four subgroups will work in their areas, but significant documents will hardly be signed," he said.

Minsk is expected to host on May 6 a regular meeting of participants of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement where the work of thematic subgroups is to be launched.