You're reading: Head of Luhansk People’s Republic challenges Poroshenko to duel

Igor Plotnitsky, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, has written an open letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in which he challenged him "to a duel."

“I am absolutely convinced that the citizens of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and all people of Ukraine, like all normal people in the world, want peace above all. Why are you inclined to consider the worst scenarios? I suggest that you consider only one scenario, which is very good: we have a duel, like Slavic chiefs and glorious Cossack hetman. The one who wins will dictate his conditions to the opposite side,” Plotnitsky said in his letter to Poroshenko.

“Our conditions are: the immediate halt of any military action, withdrawal of all Ukrainian legal, semi-legal, para-legal and illegal armed units outside the administrative borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, prompt beginning of negotiations on signing a peace treaty between Ukraine on one side and the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics on the other side. We don’t need anything else. We are ready to restore all mutually profitable economic ties with Ukraine immediately after the peace treaty is ratified,” the letter says.

In order for the duel to be fair, every side has a right to bring ten witnesses and ten media assistants, the letter says. “I do not object to a live broadcast on any television channel, if you find that possible. I will leave it to you to choose the location of the duel and the weapons,” Plotnitsky said.

The head of the LPR called on Poroshenko to prove that he is ready to shed his blood, too.

Plotnitsky also expressed confidence that he will win this duel. “Our cause is right and we will win. We have proved that once and we can prove it again, but it will cost the deaths and blood of many people on both sides. Why should that happen? Let Petro Oleksiyovych shed his own blood once and prove to the people who elected him that he is really the leader, that he is capable of standing up for his own people, even at the cost of his life,” the letter says.

Responding to journalists’ questions about the possible reaction of the Ukrainian president to this call, Plotnitsky said: There will most likely be no reaction.”