MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. The Kremlin expects the Contact Group in Minsk to finalize the ‘Steinmeier formula’ and Kiev to formalize it officially, Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Tuesday.

"We hope that the ‘Steinmeier formula’ will be finalized and the Ukrainian side will formalize it officially," he said, adding that it "might become one of important achievements of today’s meeting, apart from other results."

At the September 18 meeting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, Kiev’s envoy to the Contact Group Leonid Kuchma refused to sign the ‘Steinmeier formula’ and later Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristayko explained this by a "technical misunderstanding." Later the Donbass republics urged the guarantor countries of the Minsk agreements to respond. Particularly, DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) head Denis Pushilin said that representatives of the self-proclaimed republic to the Contact Group on resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine would insist that Kiev sign the ‘Steinmeier Formula’ at the next meeting in Minsk scheduled for October 1.

In late 2015, then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier put forward a plan that later became known as the "Steinmeier formula." The plan stipulates that special status be granted to Donbass in accordance with the Minsk agreements.