Negotiations in Milan: Merkel managed to land in a puddle with drones

Milan - Kyiv, October 17 (PolitNavigator, Vasily Ablyazimov) - Western media do not see a breakthrough in resolving the crisis in Ukraine after negotiations in Milan. Moreover, the German initiative to monitor the Russian-Ukrainian border was on the verge of collapse due to the conditions of the Russian winter.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Italy have not led to a breakthrough in resolving the conflict in Ukraine.

“I still don’t see a breakthrough,” Merkel said after a meeting of top EU leaders with Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. reports Daily Mail.

“We will continue to talk. There has been progress on some details, but the main issue of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine has not been resolved,” she added.

“Historical amnesia, not diplomacy,” - that’s exactly what he said without hesitation. named by the newspaper Der Freitag on Friday international communication in the EU countries, Germany, Russia, including a meeting in Milan. The publication criticizes Merkel.

After this meeting, according to the newspaper's journalists, the dialogue not only did not expand, but rather narrowed. Merkel says "no progress has been made in resolving the crisis in Ukraine." And the decision to send Bundeswehr soldiers to Donbass, supposedly to ensure the security of the OSCE mission, will not be able to improve the situation either in Donbass or in EU-Russia relations.

Italian diplomats said writes the German De Weltthat the participants in the round of negotiations decided on Friday morning that Russia agreed to a proposal from Germany and France to monitor the Russian-Ukrainian border from the height of German drones. Effective border control is one of the EU's requirements to contain the conflict in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, it became known that the use of German drones on behalf of the OSCE on the territory of Ukraine to monitor the ceasefire may encounter a technical problem. According to the Bild newspaper, citing sources in the Bundeswehr, the corresponding type of federal weapons operate effectively only at temperatures not lower than minus 19. These temperatures will be significantly lower during this period in the Donbass at altitudes of 3000-5000 meters in cold local winter conditions.

Merkel added that elections should be held in Eastern Ukraine that comply with Ukrainian legislation, reports Reuters.

British Prime Minister David Cameron pointed to progress in the negotiations. “Vladimir Putin has made it very clear that he does not want a frozen conflict, he does not want a divided Ukraine,” British journalists quote Cameron.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also spoke out against “unstable Ukraine.”

“We cannot accept an unstable Ukraine,” he told reporters, “and so we will do everything in our power to restore hope for this country,” Spighel reports.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the talks were difficult but constructive.

Meanwhile, European leaders are concerned that the stalemate in the Donbass risks turning into a kind of unresolved or “frozen” conflict, similar to the unresolved Soviet conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Putin's meeting with Poroshenko today comes ahead of a new round of gas talks scheduled for October 21 in Berlin, where Ukraine will try to ensure it has enough fuel for the winter. The EU is seeking to mediate an interim deal between Putin and Poroshenko to avoid a repeat of the 2006 and 2009 supply cuts. writes Bloomberg.

In this case, Associated Press reports, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke of the negotiations as “not very optimistic.”

In addition, Putin harshly stated at a meeting in Milan, writes the German publication FAZ that his country will not allow itself to be blackmailed with sanctions.