Poroshenko hosted the European leaders for dinner in Kiev, and said the meeting gave “hope for a cease-fire,” according to the presidential website. The contents of the Hollande-Merkel plan are being kept secret. A French official said that while new sanctions aren’t currently on the agenda, they can’t be ruled out. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to talk to the press.
The proposal follows a plan put forward by Putin, that, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity, advocates creating a territory similar to the frozen-conflict areas of Abkhazia or Transnistria -- breakaway provinces of Georgia and Moldova that enjoy Russian patronage.
The offer backs away from a pact agreed on Sept. 5 in Minsk, Belarus that calls for a cease-fire, creating a buffer zone between the adversaries, withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line, monitoring Ukraine’s border with Russia, and other actions, the diplomat said.
Following a meeting with Kerry, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia must adhere to the agreement before a new truce can be forged and Ukraine insists on maintaining its territorial integrity.
At the same time, Putin and other officials are losing faith that their preferred outcome -- greater autonomy for the Donbass region within a federal Ukraine -- will come to pass, according to three people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak publicly about the discussions. It’s increasingly likely the rebel-held regions will break away, according to three people familiar with the matter, they said.
“I don’t see a compromise,” Joerg Forbrig, senior program director for central and eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. said by phone. “Ukraine will accept nothing less than the demilitarization and full administrative control over the east, and won’t accept the federalization that the Russians are demanding.”
