‘Ukraine, Russia leaders to meet’

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, are expected to hold a meeting in the Italian city of Milan later this week, the Kremlin says.

In a statement, released late Tuesday, the Kremlin said the two presidents had held a telephone conversation and discussed measures to restore peace in Ukraine’s volatile eastern regions.

The statement added that Putin and Poroshenko had expressed “mutual readiness to continue exchanging views, including on the gas issue, on the sidelines of the October 16-17 ASEM [Asia-Europe Meeting] forum in Milan.”

After the statement was released, the Ukrainian president noted that “the whole world has high expectations” of their upcoming face-to-face meeting.

Meanwhile, Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, said on Wednesday that a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders could take place in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

Putin and Poroshenko last met one-on-one in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk in late August.

The crisis in Ukraine has plunged relations between Moscow and the West to its lowest level since the Cold War. Western powers and the Kiev government accuse Russia of having a hand in the Ukraine conflict, but the Kremlin denies the allegation.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow activists and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence pro-Russians in mid-April.

Violence intensified in May after Donetsk and Lugansk regions held local referendums, in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine. Latest figures show that more than 3,600 people have been killed in Ukraine’s eastern provinces over the past six months.

SSM/AB/SS