Ukraine leader says he is ‘ready’ for peace deal with Russia
Picture: AFP
Kyiv. Ukraine’s new Western-backed leader said on Thursday he was ready to make a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that could end a separatist insurgency convulsing his ex-Soviet state, AFP reports.
President Petro Poroshenko’s decision to extend an olive branch to the Russian strongman came just a day before he signs the final chapters of a historic EU agreement that nudges his country toward eventual membership and pulls it firmly out of Moscow’s reach. The EU accord lies at the heart of a conflict on the eastern edge of Europe that pits the Kremlin against Western powers and ethnic Russians against Ukrainian speakers in the splintered but strategic nation of 46 million.
The West is currently scrambling to save a temporary ceasefire and nascent peace talks that pro-Russian militias that control large swathes of industrial east agreed to at the start of the week. Poroshenko on Thursday pushed back the expiry of the truce – broken on repeated occasions but still having succeeded in tempering the worst of the violence in the Russified eastern rustbelt – for a few hours until Friday at 1900 GMT.
Kyiv and separatist commanders have also set up a third round of indirect negotiations in the eastern hub of Donetsk that could agree another extension.
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