Putin proposes heavy weapons in Donbas be pulled back from contact line stipulated by Minsk agreements - Lavrov

12:13, 21.01.2015 1 min read

A peace plan that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently forwarded to Kyiv contains a proposal on withdrawing heavy weapons not from the actual contact line but from the borderline stipulated by the Minsk memorandum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"The president of Russia has made a proposal that, instead of continuing to stick in disputes about the contact line, heavy weapons should be withdrawn from the line that is stipulated in the Minsk agreements rather than the actual one," Lavrov said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"The contact line stipulated by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19 is different from the one that has taken shape on the ground de facto," Lavrov said.

"The militia control certain territories," he said.

"All energy in the negotiations was focused on bringing the actual contact line on the ground into compliance with what is written in an appendix to the Minsk agreements," he said.