Head of Donetsk People’s Republic hopes that conflict in Donbass will be settled by the end of 2016

Head of the proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Zakharchenko hopes that the conflict in Donbass will be settled by the end of 2016.

During a televised call-in line with Ukrainian citizens, Zakharchenko expressed hoped that the conflict will be settled this year. “This is not a fact but we are trying to solve this problem peacefully,” he said.

Russia’s representative to the Contact Group on Donbass Boris Gryzlov said earlier that Yatsenyuk’s replacement with Groysman may help to unfreeze the Minsk agreements. “But for the time being we are receiving news that run counter to our hopes. The plans not to pay pension to Donbass residents mean that those people are forced out of Ukraine. This approach will hardly help us to settle the conflict,” Gryzlov said.

Earlier EADaily quoted the former leader of the Right Sector, MP Dmytro Yarosh as saying that Ukraine may fall apart by the end of this year. “We need to save the country as by the end of this year it may fall into several quasi-states. The goals of Maidan have not yet been achieved. Corruption is still present, people are impoverished. And I have very little hope that we can change something in a constitutional way,” Yarosh said.