Light at the end of the week

Negotiations in Minsk of a trilateral contact group to resolve the situation in eastern Ukraine may take place on the nearly Sunday. This was stated by President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during a joint press conference with Polish President Bronislav Komorovsky, UNIAN reports .

"On Thursday -fifth, a video conference will be held in the format of the trilateral contact group, and there is a hope that a meeting of the tripartite contact group will be held on Sunday in Minsk," Poroshenko said.

According to Poroshenko, on the eve of the phone, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany discussed the implementation of the Minsk agreements. In particular, it was about the immediate liberation of hostages, including the Ukrainian pilot, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Nadezhda Savchenko.

The meeting of the tripartite contact group in Minsk was scheduled for December 9th. However, that day it did not take place.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin press service also reported that duringthe four-sided telephone conversations, the issue of resuming the work of the contact group was raised. "The importance of the early holding of the Contact Group in the interests of the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the establishment of dialogue between Kyiv with the South -East is noted. Among the priority tasks, in particular, are indicated - the exchange of forced persons and the recoving conflicting aspects of heavy weapons from the contact line," the statement said in the message

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that the coming days will be possible to withdraw from a crisis in Ukraine . According to him, he observes constructive steps from Russia. At the same time, Kerry noted that Washington does not aim to suffer from the sanctions imposed on Russia.

"We do not want the Russian people to suffer, this is not our goal. There are many aggregate factors, but the sanctions were aimed at encouraging President Putin to make a different choice," Kerry said.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is not insisting on the federalization of Ukraine or autonomy of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The minister made such a statement in an interview with France 24. The degree of independence of the eastern regions should be resolved by Ukrainians themselves, the minister noted.