Talks to end the bloodshed in Ukraine got underway in Belarus Tuesday, hours after Kiev said it had captured Russian soldiers engaged in combat on Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he wants to find a compromise to end the bloodshed that includes the interests of the people in eastern Ukraine.
“The goal of my visit to Minsk is to stop the bloodshed and begin the search for political compromise,” Poroshenko said in the Belarusian capital at the beginning of one day of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior EU officials, and the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Poroshenko stressed that he is ready to discuss various ways to end the crisis. “The fate of peace and Europe will be decided in Minsk,” he said.
Putin, who mentioned the conflict only in passing, said that it will only end through dialogue with Ukraine’s eastern regions. “The crisis must not be solved by the further escalation of force,” he said.
Upon arrival, the Russian President shook hands with his Ukrainian counterpart. It is the second time both leaders met since Poroshenko was elected in April. A face-to-face talk between Poroshenko and Putin has not been confirmed.
Earlier Tuesday, the Ukrainian Security Service, SBU, said that it caught 10 Russian paratroopers who had crossed into the Ukraine’s embattled Donetsk region.
The SBU also published video interviews with four soldiers, in which they claimed that they had been sent across the border under the pretext of military exercises.
A source in the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed in comments carried by Russia’s three big news agencies that soldiers had been captured on Ukrainian soil, but claimed that they mistakenly crossed the border while on patrol.
The village of Dzerkalniy, where the SBU said the Russians were detained, is some 25 kilometres from the border with Russia.
The area has seen heavy fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government troops eager to seal the border with Russia. A separatist website claimed that more than 80 government soldiers had been either killed or wounded in the area.
The Ukrainian government accuses Moscow of aiding the separatists by sending heavy weapons and fighters across the porous border. The government has also claimed that Russian soldiers have in numerous instances crossed into Ukraine.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council said that more than 200 separatist fighters had been killed in eastern Ukraine during the past 24 hours.
On Monday, Poroshenko dissolved parliament and set early elections for October 26.
Russia announced the same day that it would send a second aid convoy to areas in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatist rebels, despite international criticism of the first fleet of aid vehicles, which crossed the border without Kiev’s approval.
GNA
PDC
