PARIS: Moscow and Kyiv on Wednesday agreed at talks in Paris that all parties should observe a ceasefire in the east of Ukraine after more than eight hours of discussions which were hailed by a French diplomat as sending a “good signal”. A Russian troop build-up close to the border with east of Ukraine has raised fears the Kremlin is planning a military intervention in its pro-EU neighbour as Moscow presses demands over NATO’s presence in eastern Europe.
An aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the Paris talks had been about resolving the separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014, not the threat of a Russian invasion. But “the question was whether the Russians wanted to signal a thaw”, he said, adding that the “difficult” discussions had ultimately resulted in something positive. “In the current circumstances, we received a good signal,” he said.
For the first time since 2019, Ukraine and Russia agreed to sign a joint statement along with France and Germany about the ongoing conflict between Ukrainian forces and separatists in the east of the country. The four nations have been working towards reaching a peace deal for eastern Ukraine since 2014 and are known collectively as the Normandy Group.
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