ULAN-BATOR, September 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that final agreements between the Kiev government and independence supporters in southeastern Ukraine may be reached during Friday’s Contact Group meeting in Minsk.
«I believe, final agreements between the Kiev government and southeastern Ukraine could be reached and sealed during the scheduled Contact Group meeting on September 5," Putin said during his visit to Mongolia.
The Russian leader also that his and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko views on ways to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine were aligned.
“Yes, this morning President Poroshenko and I spoke over the phone and our views, as far as I understand, on settling the conflict are very similar,” Putin said.
The president noted that the work of the contact group for a final settlement of the situation in the southeastern Ukraine should be carried out only with full and unconditional assurance of the legitimate rights of the people who live there.
On September 1, the Contact Group on Ukrainian reconciliation, comprising Russia, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Ukrainian government and eastern Ukraine’s independence supporters met in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
Representatives from the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics said during the meeting that if the self¬proclaimed republics received certain legislative guarantees of their special status, they would make every effort to “save the single economic, cultural and political space of Ukraine and the whole space of the Russian¬Ukrainian civilization."
The next Contact Group meeting is scheduled for September 5.
The special military operation in southeast of Ukraine was launched by Kiev authorities in mid-April.
