Poroshenko at United Nations: Ukraine president demands Russian Federation stop aggression

Under the deal on small weapon withdrawal, the Ukrainian government and rebel forces should pull tanks, mortars and artillery of less than 100 millimeter caliber back 15 kilometers from the contact line.

“But I hope to be positively surprised by French and German diplomacy”.

He wasted little time before launching into an attack on Russian Federation, which Poroshenko accuses of funding and fueling a war against Ukraine.

Putin has been ostracised by the West over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and relations remain frosty.

According to the United Nations reports, approximately 8,000 people including Ukrainian soldiers, civilians and members of the armed groups have been killed, while more than 17,800 sustained injuries since the crisis began in eastern Ukraine in mid-April 2014. Rebel representatives at the talks said their leaders should sign it on Wednesday. “The ceasefire is in better shape because the Russians have decided it should be so”.

And its “hybrid war” tactics include ordering Russian servicemen in Ukraine to remove insignia from their uniforms and hide their presence on the battlefield, he added.

Mr Poroshenko’s remarks appear especially prescient given recent Russian military air strikes in northern Syria – performed with the express permission of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who has been waging war on his own people for more than four years.

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine – which it still denies – amounts to the “mass production of terror”, Poroshenko told delegates attending the second day of speeches to the United Nations General Assembly.

Putin also said that adhering to the September 2015 Minsk agreements will be key to solutions in Ukraine.

Ukraine wants the “fake” rebel elections to be cancelled immediately for the peace process to continue, said Kiev presidency official Kostiantyn Yeliseyev.

Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s vice chancellor, favours easing sanctions to win Moscow’s cooperation in the conflict in Syria.

Meanwhile, the Russian prime minister said that “quite recently the Ukrainian economy has been linked with the Russian one to a considerable degree”.

Europe’s former Soviet republics are also cautious.

“We have taken the decision to ban flights by Russian airlines, first and foremost by Aeroflot and Transaero, to Ukraine”, he said.

“The Russians will use Syria to distract attention from Ukraine”.

The agreement with the government was struck on Tuesday during talks in Minsk, Belarus, on the ceasefire, which has seen regular accusations of violations from both sides.

“A frozen conflict can always be unfrozen”, said Jacek Saryusk-Wolski, a Polish centre-right European Union lawmaker active in Western efforts to integrate Kiev.