MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Russian and French Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, continued to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the Kremlin press service said on Tuesday after their telephone conversation.

"The leaders continued to exchange views of the current aspects of the situation around Ukraine, including in the context of today’s round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul," it said.

According to the Kremlin, special attention was focused on humanitarian matters. "The Russian president informed [his French counterpart] about the measures taken by the Russian military to provide emergency humanitarian assistance and ensure safe evacuation of civilians, including from Mariupol," it said. "It was stressed that Ukrainian nationalist militants must stop resistance and surrender arms in order to resolve the difficult humanitarian situation in that city."

Istanbul hosted another offline round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations on Tuesday. Following the talks, Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said that the Russian side had received Ukraine’s written proposals on a possible agreement between the sides. After studying these initiatives, Moscow will advance its own proposals, he added. Apart from that, in his words, Moscow is taking "two huge steps" toward Kiev and suggests a meeting between the two countries’ presidents, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine, be organized earlier than planned, i.e. concurrently with the initialing of the peace agreement by the foreign ministers. Along with that, Russian troops will scale down their activities in Kiev and Chernigov.