Roundtable in Grozny suggests putting NCFD representatives into conflict settlement group in Ukraine

On August 8, the city of Grozny held a roundtable "Chechnya's Experience as Tool to Stop Bloodshed in Ukraine", organized by the "Objective" News Agency jointly with the "United Caucasian Forum" and with the support of the Public Chamber of Chechnya. The event was attended by rights defenders and public figures from Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

Kheda Saratova, the head of the "Objective", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the roundtable adopted an appeal to politicians in Russia, Ukraine and the European Union asking them to stop the bloodshed.

"There are no goals, which could justify the tragedy of thousands of people, tears of mothers and children, and their warped lives. We say this because, with our own bitter experience, we don't want people in Ukraine to repeat our thorny path," said Saratova.

She added that the experience gained during the years of the armed conflict in Chechnya and the peacekeeping initiatives could be useful in resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

The roundtable's appeal calls on the authorities of Russia, Ukraine and European Union to set up some peacemaking structure to address the conflict in Ukraine, composed, among other members, of civil society activists and rights defenders from the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD).

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.