OREANDA-NEWS. The Ukrainian authorities will never negotiate with representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR). This was stated by Andriy Yermak, a head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, during an online conference organized by the American analytical center Atlantic Council.

“Ukraine will never conduct any negotiations with the so-called DPR and LPR. Unfortunately, during all six years of negotiations in Minsk, the representatives of the LPR and DPR were the only representatives of the so-called territories,” he said.

Yermak also informed that Kiev wants to increase the level of its representation in the Trilateral Contact Group by appointing as a head of the delegation Oleksiy Reznikov, the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, instead of Leonid Kuchma. Yermak believes that this will help to attract senior representatives of the Russian Federation to the negotiations.