After a series of low level talks, the leaders of France and Germany, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel, hope to bring together Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko later in the day.
Video showed Denis Pushilin of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Vladislav Deinego of the Luhansk People’s Republic at the talks speaking with reporters Tuesday night.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe also attended the preliminary meeting.
But leaders involved in the talks still have a long road to travel before any lasting agreement is reached, CNN’s Nic Robertson reported from Minsk.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday that the upcoming talks were “another huge chance to take a big first step towards deescalation, hopefully towards a silencing of the weapons.
“But I underline it again, nothing has been resolved yet. The taking place of the summit alone is no a guarantee of its success. Therefore I urge and expect Moscow and Kiev to take it seriously and in the face of imminent military conflict really seize this chance.”
–
But the agreement quickly disintegrated, and the violence continued.
The new plan envisions a much broader demilitarized zone to run along the current front lines.
Russia has steadfastly denied accusations that it is sending forces and weapons into Ukraine. But top Western and Ukrainian leaders have said there isn’t any doubt that Russia is behind surging violence and separatists’ efforts to take over territory in eastern Ukraine.
All the while, the crisis in Ukraine, which stemmed from a trade agreement, has killed more than 5,000 people, including many civilians, and forced more than 1.5 million from their homes, according to the United Nations.
CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh, Alla Eshchenko, Frederik Pleitgen, Catherine Shoichet, Khushbu Shah, Matthew Chance, Radina Gigova, Emma Burrows, Steve Almasy and journalist Victoria Butenko in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
