"Despite the conflicts around one of its [contact line's] parts, the Russian side has proposed to start immediate withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the contact line in accordance with its position outlined by the coordinates, on which the Ukrainian side insists," a statement published on the official website of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sunday says.
The Russian side "will be able to use its influence on the local militia to persuade them to accept this option as a good will gesture in order to avoid new deaths among civilians", the statement adds.
Putin proposed in his message to Poroshenko that both sides to the Ukrainian conflict "take urgent measures toward discontinuing mutual attacks, as well as to immediately withdraw [heavy weaponry]" from the southeast.
Putin also said in the message, outlined by the Russian Channel One, that Moscow is "ready to work with the OSCE to monitor the implementation of these [ceasefire observance] steps".
The withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the line of contact between independence fighters and Kiev forces that launched a military operation in Donbas last spring, is stipulated by a memorandum signed at a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk in September. The meeting was attended by Russian and OSCE representatives.
