Thousands of Ukrainians have demonstrated to warn the head of state in his management of the conflict in the east of the country.
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The war, Andrii Kozintchouk does not want any more. " I was afraid. I saw my friends fall. I know what surviving meanssays the 34-year-old big guy. Sent to the front from 2014 to 2016 to fight pro-Russian separatists and their Russian godfather in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, Andrii Kozintchouk is now a veteran of a conflict that will have years, more than 13,000 victims. But he says: "If we have to take up arms again, I will go back to the front to replace those who are leaving. I want peace, yes, but not at any price. We can not abandon our land. Eastern Ukraine is our people, and it's Zelensky's. "
Andrii Kozintchouk was one of some 10,000 Ukrainians to descend on Maidan Square in Kiev and in some 30 cities across the country on Sunday (October 6th) to say no to "Capitulation" and " warn " President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian head of state, former comic actor, elected last April, seems determined to resume his language with Vladimir Putin to settle the bloody conflict in the eastern region of Ukraine. After years of deadlock, the talks reached a decisive stage on 1st October. Under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the representatives of Russia and Ukraine agreed on an agenda for elections and the granting of special status to the occupied territories from Donbass. This calendar, known as the "Steinmeier formula", named after the former German Foreign Minister, is a simplified version of the political component of the Minsk agreements, signed in 2015, but never fully implemented.
"Treason"
The president has hammered that the elections will be held only when Russian troops have evacuated the area and that Ukraine has regained control of the border, Andrii Kozintchouk, like most demonstrators in Kiev, is wary. Never have diplomatic negotiations with Russia resulted in a cease-fire. And the fact that the Kremlin welcomes this advance can only be suspect. This agreement can be, in their eyes, only a "treason", Zelensky preparing to deliver the occupied territories to the pro-Russians, and therefore to Putin.
"I felt for the first time the danger that lay, not in the Steinmeier formula as such, but in the vague way the government talks about it. I was not born yesterday, we know that what promises Zelenksy is unachievable, so what will be the compromise? What will be the price to pay for peace? Nobody wants Zelensky's resignation. We just want to tell him where the red lines are. ", says Tetyana Ogarkova, a journalist and essayist who came to protest on Sunday. "Citizen and patriot".
