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Ukraine’s Zelensky says not afraid of direct dialogue with Putin

According to Vladimir Zelensky, "the results of these talks can bring closer the end of the war"

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky Ivan Nikolaev/TASS

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky

© Ivan Nikolaev/TASS

KIEV, August 25. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is not afraid of direct dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said in his interview for Euronews Tuesday.

"I am not afraid of a direct dialogue with the President of Russia. I think that would be a right thing. If we have an opportunity to talk, and the results of these talks can bring closer the end of the war, then it must be done, regardless of how different people or different regions react to that. If we have no dialogue, then we will have no result," Zelensky said.

According to Zelensky, he spoke with his Russian counterpart before the declaration of ceasefire on July 27, 2020.

"We have discussed complicated issues of ceasefire regime compliance. So far, this dialogue brought results and we see that," the president said.

On July 27, additional ceasefire control measures at the contact line in Donbass came into effect. Those measures were negotiated on July 22, during a video conference of the Contact Group on Donbass settlement. On August 6, OSCE Special monitoring mission announced that it registered no ceasefire violations for the first time since the monitoring began in 2015.

Since fall 2014, the members of the Contact Group declared ceasefire for over 20 times. However, violations of the ceasefire regime continued to take place regularly.

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Ukraine Vladimir Putin Vladimir Zelensky

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