MINSK, Belarus — Talks on ending more than eight months of conflict in Ukraine resumed Wednesday after the country’s parliament angered Russia by voting to cancel its non-aligned status.
Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist representatives met in Minsk, along with diplomats from Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to discuss implementing agreements on prisoner exchanges and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry. The talks ended for the night, and participants left the venue without commenting to reporters.
“We hope that these efforts will in the end lead to the stabilization of the situation,” Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday.
A two-week truce has tempered the bloodshed in a conflict that has killed more than 4,700 people since April in fighting between government forces and separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday moved to drop the country’s neutral status, which Russia denounced as a step toward seeking membership of NATO.