“Ukraine, Germany and France expressed a common and clear position that they do not recognise the polls planned by separatists… and urged Russia not to recognise these elections,” a statement by the Ukrainian presidency said.
The statement came after Putin,
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande
and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a four-way telephone
conversation.
The four leaders had the
conversation shortly after Kiev and Moscow reached an EU-brokered gas
accord late Thursday settling their months-long dispute.
Separatists who control eastern Ukraine’s Lugansk and Donetsk are due to hold a controversial leadership vote on Sunday.
Moscow has already welcomed the
polls but Poroshenko said they would hurt the shaky peace process in the
six-and-a-half month conflict that has killed over 3,700 people.
The EU and the US have both
spoken out against Russia’s plan to recognise the vote, arguing that the
election would go against the September 5 truce agreement between Kiev
and the rebels overseen by Moscow in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
The Kremlin said in a statement
that the four leaders agreed in the call that the ceasefire deal should
be observed while Moscow called for “dialogue” between Kiev and the
separatists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
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