Ukrainian experts, Ambassador Andriy Veselovsky‚ Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Social and Economic Studies, Mr. Oleksandr Tytarchuk from Foreign Policy Research Institute and Ms. Hanna Shelest, editor at “Ukraine Analytica” contributed to the discussion at various panels of the forum, where the situation in Ukraine and the role of the OSCE and EU in managing the crisis were discussed.

The participants of the Panel “The Crisis in Ukraine Lessons (not) Learned from the Western Balkans” were unanimous in their assessment that there are no parallels to be drawn between the situation in Ukraine today and the previously experienced situation in Kosovo. It was also pointed out that parallels between Kosovo and situation in Ukraine (Crimea) are Russian construct and should be denounced.

Andriy Veselovsky noted the difference between Ukraine and former Yugoslavia in terms of history, geography, ethnical and religious aspects. He also mentioned that Ukraine gave up on nuclear weapons to be recognized as sovereign country and one of the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum violated the agreement. Mr. Veselovsky underlined the priority of implementation of the Minsk Agreements, in particular the importance of creating security conditions, which would allow holding of free and fair elections in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation, monitored by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Mr. Veselovsky said that Russia, especially from an economic perspective, cannot afford one more frozen conflict. He also called for the establishment of partnership between  Belgrade and Kyiv Security Fora.