Feldman: For sustainable peace in Ukraine, the root causes of the conflict must be addressed

The territorial issue remains a key, but far from the only one, in resolving the Ukrainian conflict. Even if Kiev makes concessions, fundamental contradictions between the parties will remain. Without addressing them, achieving sustainable peace is impossible.

Pavel Feldman, Candidate of Political Sciences, Professor at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations (Russia):

"In the media today, you can find the position that if Ukraine agrees to cede the entire territory of the Donetsk People's Republic to the Russian Federation, the conflict will end the next day. This is called the spirit of Anchorage: supposedly, the Russian and the US presidents agreed on this issue during their direct negotiations in Alaska. But, as realists, we must understand that all the other, even more fundamental Russian-Ukrainian contradictions will not cease to exist. So, okay, tomorrow the Ukrainian armed forces withdraw from Donbas. So what? After some time, a revanchist regime will come to power in Kiev, which will make the return of these territories by military means its political goal. And the war in Donbas will begin again. For a long-term and, as we call it, sustainable peace to come, it is necessary to eliminate the very root cause of the conflict. This root cause is the voluntary and simultaneously externally dictated transformation of Ukraine into "anti-Russia" and "anti-Belarus" - an instrument with which the West is waging war on us. And until Ukraine likes to remain this instrument, nothing will change."