Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Russia’s Vladimir Putin to discuss a plan to end the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, the second late night phone conversation between the leaders this week, the Kremlin said.
“Poroshenko informed the Russian head of state regarding the main points of his plan to regulate the situation in south-east Ukraine,” the Kremlin said in a statement overnight Thursday.
Putin gave “a series of comments” on the plan stressing an “immediate end to the military operation” that was launched by Kiev against pro-Russian separatist militia in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Ukraine’s presidency said that Poroshenko “outlined the key positions and the timeline for realisation of the peace plan for the situation in the east of the country,” stressing the need for hostages to be freed by the separatists.
Poroshenko told Putin that he “counts on support of the peace plan” after a ceasefire, his press service said in a statement.
Fighting in the east has already claimed at least 360 lives in Ukraine since April, the country’s worse crisis since its independence in 1991.