The Russian and Ukrainian Presidents agreed to work for a comprehensive truce in eastern Ukraine before the new year, after they met for the first time in Paris at a four-way summit in which France and Germany participated.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zielinski announced the exchange of all prisoners with separatists close to Russia before the end of the year, saying at a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel; that the parties "will work for the mutual release before December 31 of the prisoners" According to the principle of everyone versus everyone. "

The summit's final statement stated that "the parties commit to a complete and comprehensive ceasefire and to strengthen it by implementing all necessary measures of support for a ceasefire before the end of 2019."

The statement added that three additional regions in eastern Ukraine should be agreed "with the aim of disengaging forces and equipment by the end of March 2020".

New summit
For his part, the French President announced that a new summit bringing together his country, Germany, Ukraine and Russia will take place within four months.

"We have progressed on disengagement, prisoner exchange, ceasefire and political developments," Macron said at the joint press conference following the summit, adding, "We also asked our ministers to work during the next four months (...) with the aim of organizing local elections and holding a new summit within four months." ".

The Ukrainian president expressed his regret for achieving very few results - as he described - saying that "several questions were addressed, and my counterparts said it was a very good result after the first meeting, but I will be frank; it is very few, I wanted to solve a greater number of problems."

He added in statements that "only factual facts will confirm what has been said," noting that the previous ceasefire agreement in the Donbas region was repeatedly violated.

As for Russian President Putin, he praised the summit as "an important step" towards reducing the escalation in the crisis of eastern Ukraine.