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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy faced each other across a table in Paris for the first time to try ending five years of war that have left 14,000 people dead.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also attended the meeting, which Russia wants to use to increase pressure on Zelenskiy to fulfill the 2015 Minsk peace accord, which promises wide autonomy to Ukraine’s rebel-held regions, AP reported.
Zelenskiy wants to tweak the timeline laid out in the Minsk accord, which calls for Ukraine to be able to regain control of its border with Russia only after local elections are held in the separatist regions and the regions receive autonomous status. Zelenskiy says Ukraine must get control of its border first before local elections are held, but the Kremlin insists that’s not an option.
French officials say potential changes to the timeline will be discussed but stressed the summit is aimed at fulfilling the Minsk accord, not writing a new peace deal.
The U.S. was never formally part of this peace process, which is picking up one week after President Donald Trump cut short his own attendance at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit where implementing the 2015 Minsk deal was discussed. Since the Russian invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Ukraine has increased its cooperation with NATO. In 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating NATO membership as a strategic foreign and security policy objective.
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