The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are to hold peace talks in Minsk on Wednesday, 11 February, in an effort to avert a full-scale war in Ukraine. This may become a watershed meeting for the future of Ukraine. What will each leader be pushing for?
Ukraine’s Poroshenko wants ceasefire and release of POWs
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Ahead of the summit in Minsk Poroshenko was on an urgent visit to the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk that was shelled by Russian-backed militants on Tuesday.
“We demand an immediate, unconditional peace without any preconditions. We demand to cease fire, withdraw foreign troops and close the border. They have nothing to do here. We do not have any [internal – Belsat] conflict. We will find a compromise within the country. We need to protect peace, protect the calm in the city of Kramatorsk, we must protect Ukraine,” he said.
Poroshenko also intends to raise the question of releasing all the war prisoners.
Hollande: Donbas will hardly agree to ‘share a common life’ with Ukraine
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“If we don’t find not just a compromise but a lasting peace agreement, we know perfectly well what the scenario will be. It has a name, it’s called war,” Hollande told journalists in the city of Tulle in central France a few days ahead of the talks.
Earlier the French President said a demilitarised zone over 100 kilometres wide was required in east Ukraine. Hollande told French television that the buffer zone would be 50-70 kilometres wide on both the Ukrainian and Russian-occupied sides of the contact line.
According to Hollande, greater autonomy for Ukraine’s separatist eastern region is needed.
“These people have gone to war,” Francois Hollande said. “It will be difficult to make them share a common life.”
Putin: It is Kyiv that should be stopped
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To put an end to mounting crisis in Ukraine Kyiv should stop its military operation in Donbas and abandong attempts to ‘block Donbas economically’, Vladimir Putin told in an interview to the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram.
“The most important condition for the stabilization of the situation is immediate cease-fire and ending of a so called ‘anti-terrorist’, but in fact punitive, operation in the south-east of Ukraine. Kiev’s attempts to exert economic pressure on Donbas and disrupt its daily life only aggravate the situation,” Putin said.
In the course of the interview the Russian leader sent a clear message that he wants the neighbouring country ‘to work out such a form of constitutional arrangement that would suit all Ukrainians’.
German Chancellor Merkel: Diplomatic solution or arming Ukraine?
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Angela Merkel reiterated her objection to arming Ukraine’s military in Ottawa on Monday. She was very careful in predicting what may happen during the meeting of the Normandy quartet in Minsk, Deutsche Welle stresses.
“We will see over the next few days whether there will be progress. That is anything but certain,” Merkel said of the talks. “Now we should put all of our efforts into the question: ‘Can we find a diplomatic solution?” she wondered during her visit to Canada. “I believe that it cannot be solved militarily.”
At the same time, Merkel gave Russian President Vladimir Putin time until Wednesday to agree to a road map to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, otherwise Germany won’t oppose the U.S. plan if Barack Obama opts to send weapons to Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
