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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Putin, Poroshenko to ask experts to assess real state of affairs in east Ukraine

The Russian leader cited as an example differences in assessing the situation around the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltsevo, a town Kiev refused to consider as being encircled

© Nikolai Muravyev/TASS

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MINSK, February 12. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday participants in four-way talks in the Belarus capital Minsk agreed to ask military experts to assess the real state of affairs in the conflict zone in Ukraine’s east.

"We have agreed with President Poroshenko to instruct our military experts - and I am ready to do my part - to find out what's actually happening in real life and try to develop a complex of measures to verify the decisions made and to control and oversee their implementation on both sides," Putin told journalists.

The Russian leader cited as an example differences in assessing the situation around the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltsevo, a town Kiev refused to consider as being encircled.

"I had some doubts from the very beginning," Putin said. "If such encirclement really took place, the logical thing to do for those encircled would be to try to break out of it. And those outside would make attempts to establish a corridor to evacuate their soldiers encircled," he added.

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Vladimir Putin Eastern Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko

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