Putin agreed to return to the "Norman format"

President Vladimir Putin agreed with the German Chancellor Angel Merkel Schedule of contacts in the Norman format, the Kremlin reports .

We are talking about contacts "at various levels." Putin also hoped that Kyiv would also work on the de-escalation of the conflict in the southeast of Ukraine.

On August 10, Putin stated that he doubts the need to meet with Merkel and the presidents of France and Ukraine Francois Olland and Peter Poroshenko. The Russian president associated this with the "sabotage" in the Crimea, supposedly committed by the Ukrainian military. However, even before this, Moscow was skeptical of such meetings, and Poroshenko was last mentioned on the Kremlin’s website in May.

Since then, Putin has been talking with Merkel and Hollande. The Ukrainian and French president also claimed that soon the format of meetings for the four would be reanimated: Hollande said on September 5 that this could take place "in the coming weeks."

The Norman format was named after the region, where the heads of four states were first met, which discussed the settlement of the armed conflict in the Donbass. In 2015, they managed to come to the conclusion of the “Minsk agreements”, the execution of which the parties to the conflict has since been working.

The Russian side in most cases criticizes the Ukrainian authorities and diplomatically supports separatists, while European countries perform on the side of Ukraine. Part of the sanctions is also associated with the position of Russia in this conflict.