DONETSK. Dec 26 (Interfax) - Mass events, which were scheduled with participation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic's (DPR) People's Council chairman Denis Pushilin in Debaltseve for Saturday, were cancelled over the threat of new shellings carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"Unfortunately we even had to cancel the New Year tree opening ceremony. It is very tragic that the city is under fire now," Pushilin said.
"We should focus on ceasefire, which we agreed upon in the Contact Group, and after that we will be able to proceed to full-scale events without risking our citizens," he said.
Pushilin said it is unlikely that Kyiv's stance on the Minsk process would become more constructive if it is extended for 2017. "If we analyze the events in 2016, Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk process and only delayed it. It concerns virtually all subgroups, including those the work of which was blocked, as in the case of the economic subgroup. The longer Ukraine is delaying, the less it is able to talk of some peace processes. This is why I look at 2017 without any hopes that Kyiv would change its attitude to the Minsk Agreements, that it would at some point begin to be realistic about what it had signed and the obligations it had assumed in Minsk," he said.
Pushilin said he does not rule out that the Ukrainian side's policy may be corrected with the change of power in the United States. "In this case I have more hopes for the change of power in the U.S. and that it would put pressure at Kyiv, but let's face the truth: if Kyiv implements the agreement, there would be no Ukraine in that form which radicals and all those who participated in the coup want to have it," he said.