Merkel, Hollande to discuss Ukraine and Savchenko with Putin in Moscow

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 6 in Moscow. The western leaders are planning to discuss the new peace initiative for Donets Basin with Putin, BBC reports.

Merkel and Hollande suddenly arrived in Kiev yesterday. Their closed meeting with President Petro Poroshenko took 5 hours. Its participants gave no comments to the press afterwards. The only thing Hollande mentioned was ‘Merkel’s and his intention to suggest a new way out of the conflict that had to be acceptable for all the sides’.

“Joint suggestions for the realization of Minsk agreements have been worked out”, the Ukrainian President’s website reports. “The sides supported a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donets and Lugansk Oblasts and expressed a hope that Russia would be interested in it too,” Poroshenko’s press service reports.

The leaders of Ukraine, Germany and France urged to cease fire, withdraw foreign troops from Ukraine, close the border and release all hostages. Petro Poroshenko urged the European leaders to help release Ukrainian pilot and Verkhovna Rada member Nadezhda Savchenko. She was delivered to Russia by Russian special services and is imprisoned in Moscow now. She is suspected of connection with the death of Russian journalists. Savchenko has been on a hunger strike for a long time and is in a serious condition now.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Ukraine on February 5. Putin made a suggestion to Merkel and Hollande and they have prepared their own suggestions, he said. The main goal is peace in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin suggested creating ‘a new Transnistria in Ukraine’ to the German and French leaders, UNIAN reports. His variant of settling the conflict was called ‘too cynical’.

Photo: Reuters