"The Ukrainian side is ready to participate in consultations of the trilateral contact group with the parties that signed the Minsk agreements," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, published on its official website.
According to the statement, Kiev has offered Russia to "sign a schedule for the implementation of the Minsk agreements in their November 13 edition and to guarantee a ceasefire starting from January 19".
The schedule involves three stages: a ceasefire to be implemented in two days, the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, which should take five days, and the establishment of a buffer zone alone the line of contact between Kiev forces and independence fighters in eastern Ukraine as stipulated by the Minsk memorandum (to be completed in 21 days).
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan for the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the southeastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that the Russian leader put forward in a written message, received by his Ukrainian counterpart on January 15.
A ceasefire and several provisions specifying its implementation, including the withdrawal of heavy weapons, were agreed upon last year in September during meetings of the Contact Group on Ukraine, which includes representatives of Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Kiev and the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR).
The latest round of Contact Group talks was planned for January 16, however, it was canceled because Kiev representatives did not show up for the meeting.
