Armed separatists in eastern Ukraine want peace talks with the government but will not start them before government special forces and pro-government volunteer units leave the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the prime minister of the "Donetsk People's Republic" said on June 27.
“Under clause four [of President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan], full-scale negotiations are to start practically immediately, before June 30. It is naturally our desire that such negotiations should start, and we agree to them. But we have a condition that we have voiced on many occasions: we will start such negotiations only when at least Right Sector units – I mean all the special battalions, Dnipro, Donbas, there’s a lot of them there, – and all the National Guard forces and the special forces of the Interior Ministry are withdrawn from the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics,” Alexander Borodai told reporters in Donetsk city.
“The sooner this happens, the better for all the parties, I think,” he said.
However, “there’s very little hope that the ceasefire will be extended,” Borodai said. He said the main result of government-militants talks that had been held was an agreement to swap prisoners and bodies of those killed in fighting.
