The French president, François Hollande, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, held a telephone conversation on Wednesday 18 January with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin about implementation of the Minsk peace agreements for Ukraine, two days after discussing the issue with the Ukrainian president, Petro Porochenko.
The Kremlin says they expressed dissatisfaction about the general situation in the country, particularly the deterioration along the contact line in the Donbass region and the lack of effectiveness of the work of the Contract Group.
In a press release, the German chancellery said the heads of state agreed that Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine would continue to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict. It said this would include stabilising the fragile ceasefire, implementing suspended legal issues and exchange of all prisoners. The Élysée says that Hollande stressed the need for the ceasefire, which officially began on 24 December, to be credibly, totally and sustainably implemented. In a press release, the president’s office pointed out the urgent need to achieve progress on humanitarian questions, notably the freeing of prisoners and the sustainable restoration of water supplies.
The French president said that the Minsk agreements were the only road to a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Ukraine and the ‘Normandy’ format was the arrangement best able to allow their full and complete implementation across all issues, starting with the question of security and politics. At the Kremlin, the three leaders agreed to give further impetus to ‘Normandy’ format work (Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia). Without giving any details, the Russian president said that a series of joint activities were planned at various levels for the near future.
Merkel, Hollande and Putin also discussed the situation in Syria ahead of the Astana negotiations on 23 January arranged by Russia and Turkey. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)