"We hope that we will meet before the new year. We, on our part, are ready [to go to Minsk] at once. We are working with the OSCE [the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] as usual," Denis Pushilin told reporters in Donetsk.
Earlier on Sunday, Luhansk People's Republic's negotiator Vladislav Deinego said that the meeting would not take place on this day, as previously announced by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Kiev and pro-independence forces agreed on a ceasefire during a September 5 Contact Group meeting in the Belarus capital, but have since accused one another of violating the truce.
On December 9, Poroshenko announced a "silence regime" in an effort to resume the ceasefire between the Kiev forces and independence supporters in Ukraine's southeastern regions.
