Yesterday a meeting with members of the British House of Lords, Lord Risby and Lord Oxford, was held.

Sir Richard Risby is the Chairman of the London-based British Ukrainian Society. Together with his colleague he visited Ukraine with the purpose of holding a number of consultations and meetings with Ukrainian politicians to help the British establishment shape a multi-sided and more accurate picture of the developments in Ukraine.

The main topics of the meeting were the challenges faced by our country. The necessity to build a rule-of-law state with a developed civil society, the need for a genuine triumph of rights and freedoms for all citizens, fair political competition, fight against corruption and, most importantly, attainment of peace in Donbass.

Major part of the discussion was devoted to this latter issue, the search for a peaceful solution to the armed conflict in the east of Ukraine.

Our guests and we came to a concurring opinion that in order to achieve tangible progress in Donbass, a resolution of the UN Security Council is needed. After that, a peacekeeping contingent should appear in the east of Ukraine, which will ensure the fulfilment of the first three clauses of the Minsk Agreements: the ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, effective control over maintaining the ceasefire and preventing the escalation of confrontation.

In addition, our honoured guests wanted to know the opposition's opinion on the situation in Ukraine. After all, the opinion of the opposition is very often different from that of the government. As a rule, the government tends to show everything in an embellished fashion. I tried to form a more realistic picture of what is happening for the British politicians, including all the pros and cons, as much as possible.

I am sure that such meetings are extremely useful for the main purpose – to achieve peace and restore Ukraine.