“This text that was signed by the Contact Group…covers all issues: decentralization, border control [with Russia], and pulling back heavy weapons,” Hollande told journalists after the nearly 15-hour reconciliation talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk.
Earlier in the day, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that the document was aimed at the implementation of Minsk agreements. The document stipulates ceasefire at 12:00 a.m. local time on February 15 (February 14, 22:00 GMT), and withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the existing contact line for the Ukrainian army, and from the line agreed on last September for the independence supporters.
Putin, Hollande, Petro Poroshenko and Angela Merkel met for Ukrainian reconciliation talks in Minsk on Wednesday evening. The negotiations continued long into Thursday.
The negotiations took place amid a sharp deterioration in the situation in Donbas. Despite the ceasefire agreement reached by the warring sides in September 2014 in Minsk, clashes continued in the conflict-torn eastern Ukraine.
