Putin, Zelenskiy set to meet for crunch ceasefire talks
KIEV: Ukrainian and Russian leaders will try to seal a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and agree on prisoner swaps when they meet on Monday, but with Kiev politically constrained and Moscow unlikely to bend, the prospects for peace remain bleak, diplomats said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin hold their first face-to-face talks on Monday in Paris with the French and German leaders for more than three years since the countries’ heads of state last met. It comes after a slight easing of tensions.
Over 13,000 people have been killed in the more than five-year-old conflict in east Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces. There has been little sign of a peaceful solution despite a ceasefire agreement signed in February 2015 in Minsk.
Mr Zelenskiy won a landslide election victory in April promising to end the simmering conflict, but facing pressure from his opposition, he is wary of conceding too much to Moscow.
“If we start discussing the real political, military and security issues, namely, withdrawal of some troops on the line of contact, the question of local elections and the status of Donbass region, you see that the two leaders don’t have a lot of room for manoeuvre,” said a senior French diplomat.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, which prompted sanctions.
Key to the accords are elections in Donbass, but both sides accuse each other of failing to stick to the deal, which also includes restoring Kiev’s control over the border with Russia and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the conflict zone.
“Our main expectation for #NormandySummit and any other formats is what I call #RUxit — we want Russia and Russian forces to leave Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Tuesday.
Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat, said he saw little chance of a breakthrough.