Poroshenko-Putin Talks Fail to Yield Ceasefire Deal for East Ukraine

A meeting between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia has failed to yield an agreement to stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Talks between Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and his Russian counterpart  Vladimir Putin in Belarus’ capital of Minsk on Tuesday included a one-to-one session that stretched late into the night.

Poroshenko said after the talks, which he described as ‘very tough and complex’ that he accepts the principles of a peace plan for eastern Ukraine but Putin said it’s not Russia’s business to talk about any conditions for a ceasefire, because Moscow is not a party to the conflict.

"We can only contribute to create a situation of trust for a possible, and in my view, extremely necessary, negotiation process," Putin told journalists early on Wednesday.

He also said that only the government in Kiev can strike a ceasefire deal with Donetsk and Luhansk – the two regions in easterm Ukraine where pro-Russian rebels have been fighting Ukraine government forces since April. Kiev blames Moscow for providing arms, military personnel and other types of support to the rebels but Russia denies the charge.

Poroshenko said after talks with Putin that he had secured support for a peace plan from other leaders that attended the summit in Minsk, while the Russian president described the talks as ‘overall positive’.

The Minsk summit was also attended by the presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan (the two countries are part of a trade bloc together with Russia and Ukraine) as well as top European Union officials.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton commented after the meeting: “There was a sense in which the onus was on everyone to see if they could do their best to try to resolve this."