Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma views the agreements reached in Minsk on Thursday as a breakthrough but admits that a lot of work needs to be done to put them into practice.

"This is certainly a breakthrough. Any war has to end with peace. The later it happens, the more problems accumulate," Kuchma said in an interview with Interfax upon the conclusion of the Trilateral Contact Group meeting in Minsk on Wednesday.

The work that has to be done to implement the agreements reached in Minsk includes that on controlling their observance, Kuchma said. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will be responsible for monitoring the ceasefire and the withdrawal of weapons from the contact line, as "there are no other mechanisms existing so far," he said.

Kuchma particularly mentioned the agreement on a ceasefire, on the withdrawal of heavy weapons, and the withdrawal of foreign troops and weapons from Ukrainian territory. "This shows that common sense has started prevailing," he said.

The ex-Ukrainian president also confirmed that the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR and LPR) were refusing to sign the document on measures to implement the Minsk agreements for some time. "However, we finally persuaded them to do so," Kuchma said.