Roman Bezsmertnyy, whom President Volodymyr Zelenskyy removed from the Minsk talks on Donbas today, has suggested that while seeking to end the war, the head of state was heading for a trap with the help of Vladimir Putin.
"I honestly acted as a person who tried to give an advice. Well, what would you do if you saw people do not understand the situation a little. When I saw the president’s position, when he said: you need to do this first and then this, I told him honestly: I do not believe them, I know that they will not do this," Bezsmertnyy said on the air of 24 Kanal TV.
“I believe Zelenskyy sincerely means well but, unfortunately, he is heading towards a trap. He just does not understand who he is dealing with. This is his conscious belief that Putin can be some kind of an ally. In this confrontation, he looks like the mouse that trusted the cat. This cat will play with it and then will punish it," he predicted.
In his opinion, he was removed from the talks because of this position.
"What caused the dismissal is not a secret. This was my public position on the tactics with regard to the line of contact and in the negotiation group," he explained.
Bezsmertnyy joined the political subgroup of the trilateral contact group on a Donbas settlement on 9 July to replace the former US ambassador to the USA, Oleksandr Motsyk.
In 2015-2016, Bezsmertnyy represented Ukraine in the same subgroup. He left it over disagreements with then President Petro Poroshenko.