Ukraine Crisis Settlement Trapped in 'Vicious Circle' - Finnish President

The Ukrainian reconciliation process is trapped in "the vicious circle," which cannot be broken due to lack of progress in both political settlement and security issues, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on Friday.

TURKU (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Niinisto met with Russian President Vladimir Putin who arrived in Finland at his invitation.

"During our talks I brought up the issue that there is a vicious circle that is hard to break in the world we live in. It is the situation in Ukraine as well as the challenges we are facing in the Baltics," Niinisto told reporters.

He specified that there had been much discussion in Ukraine on the Minsk peace agreements. The discussion is focused on the political settlement and security, but no progress have been made on any of the issues.

Ukraine launched a military operation in the country's southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the coup in Kiev that toppled then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between Ukraine’s conflicting sides in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, after talks of the Normandy Four countries, comprising Russia, Germany, Ukraine and France. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.