It is premature to talk about holding a meeting of the Normandy Four leaders by the end of the year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on November, 5.
The Russian side that is closely monitoring the development in Donbas is deeply concerned over the disruption of the planned separation of forces in the village of Petrovskoye, RBC reports with reference to Peskov.
It should be noted that the Kremlin had repeatedly stressed that the separation of forces in Stanitsa Luhanskaya, Zolotoy and Petrovskoye was one of the conditions for holding the Normandy Format summit, i.e. a meeting of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.
The Ukrainian side planned that the separation would take place on November 4, but it failed due to the violation of the ceasefire and the shelling that was recorded on October, 30.
“Russia and President Putin are eager to hold a Normandy Format summit as soon as possible, but we also believe that it should be well prepared,” said Dmitry Peskov.
In addition, Putin’s press secretary commented on Sunday’s statement by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristayko about Putin’s demand to agree on a joint document before staging the summit. According to him, ‘discrete preparatory work’ is currently underway, and it would be wrong to bring it into the public.
