President: Ukraine does not cave in to blackmail and Russia sees this

"Ukraine does not cave in to blackmail. Europe and, by the way, Russia see this. But today we really find a balance for the Trilateral Contract Group meetings - a balance in a well-considered policy, in the dialogue within the TCG meetings, and in the dialogue with the Russian Federation, a subject of the Minsk process," Zelensky said at a joint press conference with President of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová in Bratislava, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to the President, this dialogue is "fragile and unstable", but Ukraine is doing everything possible to have this dialogue and subsequent results.

The Head of State noted that Ukraine already saw results. In particular, he reminded of the ongoing ceasefire regime in Donbas.

"We are aware of the results of Minsk and Normandy format meetings. There is a difficult ceasefire but it is observed," said Zelensky, adding that "if no aimed provocations had been launched, we would have saved the lives of all people who died in the fighting."

As reported, President Volodymyr Zelensky makes a state visit to Slovakia on Thursday.

Earlier, Leonid Kravchuk, the Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donbas, said that Russia would block the work of the TCG if the Verkhovna Rada did not change the resolution on local elections in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba assured that Ukraine would never make concessions on the issue of holding elections in the temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions which would undermine its territorial integrity or European and Euro-Atlantic development.

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