Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed the conflict in eastern Ukraine and both expressed support for a cease-fire that started on Monday, their offices said on Sunday.
Ukrainian, Russian and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe negotiators agreed on a full cease-fire between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine from late July, putting on hold the military conflict that claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2014.
“The leaders agreed on the need for an urgent implementation of extra measures to support the cease-fire regime in Donbass,” Zelenskiy’s office said, referring to eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy came to power in 2019 promising to end the conflict. Since then, Ukraine and Russia have implemented a number of confidence-building measures, including prisoner swaps and phased troop withdrawals in designated areas.
Putin told Zelenskiy in a phone call that Ukraine’s decision to hold regional elections in 2020 contradicts the Minsk peace accords aimed at resolving the conflict.
Kyiv plans to hold local elections in October across the country apart from breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Zelenskiy’s office said the Ukrainian president told Putin that further steps were needed to free Ukrainian citizens being held in eastern Ukraine, Crimea and Russia.
Ukraine and Russia have been foes since 2014, when Moscow seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and backed the rebellion in the east. Major combat ended with a cease-fire agreed in the Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015, but sporadic clashes still regularly kill civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and separatists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the online meeting with members of the government at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, on April 15, 2020. (Kremlin photo)
