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Kremlin confirms meeting of Normandy Four leaders’ aides in late August in the works

The preparations are underway, according to the spokesman

MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. The preparations for a meeting of aides to the leaders of Normandy Four (Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine) are underway, the talks are planned to be held in Paris in late August, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday.

"I know that preparations for such a meeting were indeed underway, contacts were taking place," he said. At the same time, Peskov could not confirm that the meeting was scheduled for August 28. "I need to confirm that. I don’t know whether they agreed a final date or not," he said.

The spokesman added that the meeting’s agenda could be quite predictable. "It is the process of implementation of the previously reached agreements. All of them are absolutely transparent and well known," he concluded.

Earlier, Kiev’s representative to the Trilateral Contact Group Sergei Garmash revealed that the meeting of political advisors to the leaders of Normandy Four states can take place on August 28. According to Garmash, the upcoming meeting will be attended by Chief of Staff to the Ukrainian President Andrei Yermak and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian President's Executive Office Dmitry Kozak.

The first talks of the Normandy Four group took place in France in June 2014 amid commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the landing of allied troops in Normandy. Then the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met for the first time to find a solution to the conflict in the southeastern Ukrainian region of Donbass. Since then, the Normandy Four has held a series of phone talks and summit meetings, along with meetings of foreign ministers and other officials. The previous summit of the four leaders took place in Paris on December 9, 2019, with the following meeting planned to be held in four months. Lately, the sides have been discussing various prospects of cooperation in this format at different levels.