Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) has said that talks over a ceasefire in Donbas continue but no agreement has been reached yet on a specific date for halting the hostilities.
“The very fact that during the talks shooting between these groups stops at least in the area where the meetings are taking place points that these talks have prospects, and the prospects are very good,” NSDC spokesman Andriy Lysenko told Interfax.
At the same time, it is premature to talk of any results, he said. “Upon completion of these talks the results must be communicated at an official level. These talks still continue,” he said.
A positive thing is the fact that the militia leaders have come out and are taking part in these talks, Lysenko said. “At least, we are in contact with them, and that is one of the first steps which could become a continuation of this work,” Lysenko said.
Ukraine still relies on the agreements that were reached in Minsk, seeing them as the basis for further talks, he said.
A day earlier the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) Igor Plotnitsky said that LPR militants and the Ukrainian military had agreed on a ceasefire from December and on the start of withdrawal of military hardware from the line of contact from Dec. 6.
The DPR leaders said they were hoping to reach progress in ceasefire talks with Kyiv before Dec. 10.
On Sept. 5, members of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia and the European Union) signed a protocol whose main point was the immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire took effect on the same day from 6 p.m. Kyiv time. Ukrainian officials repeatedly claimed to be strictly abiding by these agreements, while militants have constantly violated them.
