Poroshenko to Call Urgent Meeting of Contact Group Over Conflict Escalation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has tasked his aides with calling for the extraordinary session of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine to discuss the situation near the town of Avdeevka, presidential administration deputy head Kostiantyn Yeliseyev said Monday.

KIEV (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, water supply and power were reported to be cut in Avdeevka, located in Donetsk region.

"The president has just now ordered to call for the urgent session of the trilateral contact group in any format, including videoconferencing, to discuss the situation around [the town of] Avdeevka that is becoming critical," Yeliseyev said to the Ukrainian TV broadcaster Channel 5.

The trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine is a group of representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE that has been formed as a means to facilitate a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. Its next meeting was scheduled for February 1.

Kiev launched a special military operation in Ukraine’s southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power as a result of a coup. In February 2015, the two sides reached a peace agreement after talks brokered by the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine — the so-called Normandy Format — in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Kiev has been reluctant to implement a number of Minsk deal provisions.

Multiple ceasefires have been introduced in Donbass (Ukraine's southeast) since the start of the conflict, but all of them have failed to hold as both sides blamed each other for violations.