Updated 1:59 p.m. Moscow Time
MILAN, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Friday’s breakfast meeting of Russian, Ukrainian and EU leaders in Milan was constructive, although some of its participants were reluctant to learn about the real state of affairs in eastern Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
“The participants discussed the implementation of the Minsk agreements in a detailed and substantive way. Unfortunately, some participants of the breakfast meeting have demonstrated full reluctance to understand the real situation in southeastern Ukraine,” he told reporters.
The spokesman said the participants did not discuss the issue of Western sanctions imposed on Russia.
The 1.5-hour breakfast meeting on the margins of the ASEM summit in northern Italy brought together Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko, as well as British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
On September 5, the trilateral Contact Group in Minsk reached a series of agreements between the Ukrainian government and the self-proclaimed people's republics of Luhansk and Donetsk. Among the provisions of the deal are an "all-for-all" prisoner exchange, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, additional humanitarian convoys from Russia to eastern Ukraine, and a ceasefire which came into force on the same day.
Numerous violations have been reported in the regions since the ceasefire was established.
At least 331 deaths have been reported in eastern Ukraine since the ceasefire deal, bringing the overall death toll in the the six-month-old conflict to more than 3,600, the UN said last week.
