Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will hold a meeting with EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton upon arrival in Minsk.
An Interfax correspondent has been told that Poroshenko will meet with Ashton as soon as he comes to the Belarusian capital.
Afterwards, Poroshenko is expected to hold bilateral negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, to be followed by a multilateral meeting of the Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh presidents in Ashton’s presence.
So far, it remains unknown whether Poroshenko will hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk.
The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Interfax on Aug. 25 that Putin is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings in Minsk, including a possible meeting with Poroshenko.
“Firstly, we expect during this meeting, if it takes place after all, an honest conversation on resolving the Ukrainian crisis and humanitarian issues,” Peskov said.
“It is hard to expect that the presidents will be able to discuss the whole vast agenda during this meeting,” he said.
At the same time, when asked whether Russia was ready to discuss the gas topic in such a format, Peskov said: “Of course, the gas issue is an important aspect of the agenda for our bilateral relations.”
