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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Report: Ukraine finds support for peace plan

Putin says he has 'overall positive' take on proposal

The Columbian
Published:

MINSK, Belarus — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said early Wednesday that he has support for a peace plan from leaders who attended a summit meeting in Minsk, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported.

But there were no indications that would mean an immediate end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces in which about 2,000 civilians and more than 700 Ukrainian troops have died.

Putin said separately he had an “overall positive assessment” of Tuesday’s meetings, which included face-to-face talks with Poroshenko.

Putin told reporters there was no discussion of a cease-fire in Ukraine because Russia is not a party to the conflict. Moscow is accused by Kiev and the West of arming and supporting the rebels — a charge the Kremlin denies.

In addition to their one-on-one meeting, Putin and Poroshenko also met in a general session meeting with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus, and top European Union officials.

The meeting in the capital of Belarus came on the same day that Ukraine had said it captured 10 Russian soldiers who had come over the border.

Putin did not directly address the allegation but appeared to tacitly recognize it and suggested that the soldiers simply had become lost.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine also had expanded to a new front. The area around the city of Novoazovsk, strategically positioned on roads linking Russia with Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March, has come under heavy artillery firing in the past two days.

Shortly after Poroshenko took office in June, he released a peace plan for the conflict that included an amnesty for those not accused of serious crimes and called for some decentralization of power to the region.

“I can say that the logic of this peaceful plan was finally supported by all, without exclusion, of the heads of state,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

Getting the rebels to accept the plan, however, would be a key issue, and Russia appears either unable or unwilling to exert influence on the separatists to end their fight.

The general summit meeting began with a stiff and awkward handshake between Poroshenko and Putin, their first meeting since a brief encounter at a D-Day remembrance ceremony in June.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters the talks at the summit were “tough,” but stopped short of saying that they had failed.

“Sadly, the situation there (in Ukraine) has gone so far that in the absence of agreements in principle, any steps or technical accords are not going to lead to settlement,” he said.

Kiev and many Western countries have repeatedly accused Moscow of providing arms and expertise to the pro-Russian rebels to try to destabilize Ukraine, something Russia has denied.

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