Ukraine local elections will not take place in 2015: Hollande

Hollande said this meeting “is being held in a different format” from the previous one, referring to the ceasefire in Donbas.

The Minsk deadline for a full return to Ukraine’s sovereignty over its eastern provinces had originally been set for December 31, 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has over the past days shifted Western attention away from the Ukraine conflict by ramping up Moscow’s military presence in its war-torn Soviet-ally Syria and launching air strikes against Islamic State militants.

Pro-Moscow rebels announced Saturday they had begun withdrawing tanks from the buffer zone between warring forces in eastern Ukraine a day after key peace talks in Paris.

The pullback is in line with a Western-backed peace deal agreed in the Belarussian capital Minsk in February.

Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the press after the summit, saying the leaders had agreed that a rebel vote planned in the east on October 18 could not go ahead.

The run-off in eastern Ukraine was previously scheduled for October 18.

The announcement of the beginning of the small-weapons withdrawal came after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko voiced cautious optimism over the future of a peace deal but said the war was not over.

“Latest developments follow Ukraine” an agreement this week between Kiev and rebels that all light weapons will be withdrawn between the buffer zone dividing their forces.

Hollande said the leaders had called for a similar process with the withdrawal of heavy weapons and that European monitors the OSCE are afforded “safe and free access across Ukrainian territory up to the border” with Russian Federation.

Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and Putin held their first talks on the Ukrainian crisis in Normandy, France in June 2014, on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the meeting that the leaders had reaffirmed their position that there is “no alternative” to the implementation of the Minsk agreement, which Kyiv and the West have repeatedly accused Moscow and the separatists of violating.

Neither Merkel or Hollande touched on the issue of sanctions, which are due to be reviewed at the end of the year.