Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the Navy Day Parade in Saint Petersburg, Russia, July 26, 2020. Sputnik / Alexei Druzhinin / Kremlin via REUTERS
MOSCOW / KYIV (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed the conflict in eastern Ukraine and both voiced support for a ceasefire starting July 27, their offices said on Sunday.
Ukrainian, Russian and OSCE negotiators agreed to a complete ceasefire between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the end of July, putting on hold the military conflict that claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2014 .
“The leaders agreed on the need for an urgent implementation of additional measures to support the ceasefire regime in Donbass,” Zelenskiy’s office said, referring to eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskiy came to power last year promising to end the conflict. Since then, Ukraine and Russia have implemented some confidence-building measures, including prisoner exchanges and the gradual withdrawal of troops in designated areas.
Putin told Zelenskiy in a phone call that Ukraine’s decision to hold regional elections in 2020 contradicts the Minsk peace accords aimed at solving the conflict.
Kiev plans to hold local elections in October across the country, apart from the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Zelenskiy’s office said the Ukrainian president told Putin that more steps were needed to release Ukrainian citizens detained in eastern Ukraine, Crimea and Russia.
Ukraine and Russia have been enemies since 2014, when Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and backed the rebellion in the east. The main battle ended with a ceasefire agreed in the Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015, but sporadic fighting still regularly kills civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and separatists.
Reports by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Editing by Peter Graff
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