Interfax: Moscow ready to help launch dialogue between Kyiv and southeast Ukraine – top Russian diplomat

MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) – Russia is prepared to do everything it can to help launch dialogue between Kyiv and representatives of Ukraine’s southeastern regions.

“Today it is important to take active measures in order to ensure a sustainable dialogue between Kyiv and representatives of Donbas. And we are help in every possible way,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told Interfax on Monday.

Russia “respects the choice made by residents of the southeast,” he said.

“Our position is that the elected representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions thereby received a mandate to hold negotiations with the central Ukrainian authorities and, acting as part of their political dialogue, tackle all the problems that have accumulated over many months,” Karasin said.

“It is obvious that the people of Donbas have already suffered enough and they want to lead a stable and quiet life,” he said.

Self-proclaimed election officials have announced that the acting prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, has been elected the head of the DPR, while Igor Plotnitsky have secured a victory in the Luhansk People’s Republic as a result of the November 2 polls.