You're reading: Online conference of Ukraine Contact Group to begin at 3 p.m. on Dec. 19

MOSCOW - An online conference expected to precede the next meeting of the trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine in Minsk will begin at 3 p.m. on Dec. 19, the Donetsk News Agency said.

“A Skype conference of the Contact Group will begin at 3 p.m. today,” it said.

Denys Pushylin, deputy speaker of the parliament of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said that the issues the self-proclaimed republic would propose for discussion would remain “unchanged.”

First and foremost, they include the need to observe the ceasefire and withdraw artillery weapons and multiple-launch rocket systems, as well as POW exchanges, the gradual lifting of Kyiv’s economic blockade of Donbas and the enactment of Ukrainian laws on amnesty and “special” self-rule status for Donbas, Pushylin said.

The format of a Skype conference does not envisage “the participation of the EU and the U.S. in it,” he said.

“The format remains the same,” he added.

Pushylin said earlier that such a conference should be held via Skype on Dec. 19.