Putin and Ukraine’s new leader discuss east Ukraine conflict

FILE: MOSCOW, RUSSIA – DEC 23, 2016: The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin at the annual press conference in Center of international trade (ID1974 / Shutterstock.com)

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin had his first phone call with Ukraine’s new president on Thursday and discussions centred on the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has bitterly blighted relations between the two countries.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also talked about the release of prisoners. He said they agreed that experts from both countries would work on those issues.

Peskov added that the two discussed the possibility of “continuing contacts in the Normandy format,” a reference to four-way talks involving the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany. They first met in 2014 on the sidelines of the 70th anniversary of the allied landing in Normandy.

Zelenskiy’s office said in its readout of the call that the Ukrainian leader urged Russia to release the Ukrainian navy sailors, whom Russia seized along with their crews in an incident in November in the Black Sea.

Zelenskiy, a popular comedian who played a high school teacher-turned Ukrainian president in a popular TV series, won 73 per cent of the vote in April’s runoff against former President Petro Poroshenko.

Earlier this week, Zelenskiy suggested that he and Putin meet in Minsk, Belarus to discuss the conflict in Ukraine’s east and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

He added that he would like the leaders of the U.S., Britain, France and Germany to join the talks.

Asked about Zelenskiy’s proposal earlier Thursday, Putin told reporters that he’s open for talks with the new Ukrainian leader. He added, however, that such negotiations would be unlikely before Ukraine’s parliamentary elections are held on July 21 and a new Ukrainian Cabinet is formed.

“The high-level meetings need to be thoroughly prepared,” Putin said after talks with Bolivian President Evo Morales in the Kremlin. “And secondly, talks would only be possible after completing the formation of the new Cabinet and holding parliamentary elections.”

The Russian leader also noted that other leaders haven’t yet responded to Zelenskiy’s proposal and added that British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to step down within weeks.

Zelenskiy, who took office in May, pledged to put an end to fighting between government troops and Russia-backed separatists in the east, which has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.

In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal for eastern Ukraine that was signed in the Belarusian capital Minsk. It has helped reduce the scope of fighting, but clashes have continued and political settlement has stalled.

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Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.