PRESS RELEASE
Normandy Four Leaders Discuss Ukraine Situation
July 25, 2017 (EIRNS)—The Normandy Four leaders—Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron—spoke by phone yesterday. According to the Interfax Ukraine report, the four leaders spoke for two hours, during which time they received briefings from Ertugrul Apakan, the chief of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) monitoring mission and his first deputy Alexander Hug. According to the Kremlin readout, Apakan and Hug reported on the maintaining of the ceasefire in the Donbass region and also about other aspects of OSCE monitoring activity. "After that, the leaders exchanged opinions on the situation in southeast Ukraine in light of serious violations of the Minsk Agreements" the readout says. Poroshenko
"called the last days of July one of the bloodiest in 2017 and urged Russia to immediately cease [its alleged] aggressive actions and supply of weapons to the occupied territories."
Meanwhile, the two breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are calling U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker to visit for discussions. "I think this would be a rather useful meeting for all parties no matter what initial positions," the Luganskinformcenter news agency quoted Luhansk envoy to the Minsk Contact Group Vladislav Deinego as saying. Both Deinego and Alexander Pushilin, his Donetsk counterpart, have indicated that Volker has made no effort to contact them yet. "However, we would want very much to meet him and look him in the eye, as well as listen to his rhetoric," Deinego said.
