Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a telephone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on February 20, press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti.
“Yes. Planned,” he said in response to a question whether such a conversation was in the head of state’s schedule.
As the Western media wrote, today Macron intends to talk with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and tomorrow with Putin.
The leaders of Russia and France spoke by phone a week ago, and on February 7, Macron visited Moscow. One of the main topics of the talks was the situation in Ukraine.
In the last two days, the situation in the Donbass has seriously deteriorated. Kiev ignores all the agreements reached earlier, has concentrated most of the army on the border with the self-proclaimed republics, and regularly fires at the militias, including with the use of prohibited equipment. Local authorities fear that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will soon order the military to launch an invasion. Against this background, the leadership of the DPR and LPR announced the temporary evacuation of citizens to the Rostov region.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been going on for eight years, during which time, according to the UN, more than 13,000 people have become victims, and about 44,000 more have been injured. De-escalation is being discussed at a contact group meeting in the Belarusian capital. The Minsk agreements are taken as a basis, which provide for a constitutional reform, a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact.
Tensions in the Donbass are being fueled by the United States and other NATO countries, which are pumping weapons into Ukraine and sending military instructors there. Moscow has repeatedly called for a halt in the supply of arms, as this could provoke Kiev into military adventures.