Updated 1:15 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 10 (RIA Novosti) – In their latest phone conversation, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko expressed satisfaction with how the ceasefire in Ukraine is being observed, Putin’s aide said Wednesday.
“They had an interesting and substantive conversation to discuss the situation in southeastern Ukraine. Both sides expressed satisfaction with how the ceasefire is being observed,” presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
Ushakov said “both sides understand that the process is complicated and not everything runs 100 percent to the plan.”
At the September 5 meeting in Minsk of the trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian crisis (Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) the Kiev regime and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics reached a range of agreements, including on a ceasefire.
The Kremlin aide has declined to comment on the statement made by President Poroshenko Wednesday on the status of the territories in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader said that the Minsk protocol does not envisage the acknowledgement of DPR and LPR or Ukraine’s federalization and stipulates that their status is to be as part of Ukraine.
