"Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko held a telephone conversation on Thursday, during which they discussed the current situation in Ukraine and also mentioned a high level meeting in the 'Normandy format' is planned for the end of January," the press service said.
Russian president's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the preparations for the upcoming meeting were underway.
The "Normandy format", comprising Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, met to discuss the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine back in June 2014. Earlier media reports suggested that the heads of the four countries were expected to meet in Astana on January 15 and 16.
On Monday, in a joint press release the foreign ministers of the Normandy quartet urged the Contact Group on Ukraine to meet as soon as possible in order to discuss the implementation of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine that was agreed upon back in September in Minsk. The Contact Group includes representatives from Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.
