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Implementation of Minsk-2 Ceasefire Agreement 'Lamentable' — Kremlin

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the implementation of the Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement “lamentable,” one day before a top meeting on bringing peace to eastern Ukraine, state news agency TASS reported.

Foreign ministers from Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine are to meet in Berlin Wednesday to discuss ongoing tensions in the Donbass area. The four countries signed the Minsk-2 agreement in Feb. 2015 in a bid to bring peace to war-torn region.

Peskov said that while the peace process was extremely important, the situation in Ukraine was “far from being promising and productive.”

“For now, we observe a lamentable situation when it comes to implementing the [Minsk-2] agreements,” he said.

The Minsk-2 agreement is a 12-point plan aimed at bringing peaceful settlement to the eastern Ukraine conflict. The steps include immediate and full ceasefire, pullout of heavy weapons from the frontline, Constitutional reform in Ukraine, and the agreement to hold local elections.

Russia's deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin has announced that Russia has prepared a number of proposals for the upcoming meeting in Berlin, and that he hoped that negotiations “would accelerate the peace process.”

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