“I am having lots of bilateral meetings, but not specifically on [Ukraine],” Zannier said. “I was in Kiev last week. The conversation was in Kiev. I saw the Russian Ambassador in Vienna just before coming here. I have constant exchanges and open channels.”
The Trilateral Contact Group, consisting of envoys and experts from Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE, holds regular meetings in Minsk aimed at facilitating a diplomatic resolution to the armed conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Kiev launched a military operation in the country's east in April 2014 after the local residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions refused to recognize new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power after the coup earlier the same year.
In February 2015, Kiev and the two regions reached a ceasefire in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Despite the Minsk peace accords, both sides to the conflict have continued to blame each other for multiple ceasefire violations.
