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Putin, Zelenskiy Meet in Bid to Bring Peace to Eastern Ukraine

RFE/RL

   Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart,
   Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are meeting for the first time in Paris for
   long-awaited talks on resolving the military conflict in eastern
   Ukraine that has left more than 13,000 people dead since 2014.

   After a series of bilateral meetings at the Elysee Palace on December
   9, Putin and Zelenskiy sat down together with French President Emmanuel
   Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

   The leaders entered the room without smiling and making little eye
   contact with each other. They did not shake hands for the cameras.

   The four-way talks in the so-called Normandy Format is the first time
   the heads of Ukraine and Russia have met since 2016 and the first
   meeting ever between Zelenskiy, who was elected in April, and Putin.

   The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled in November 2016 that the
   war in eastern Ukraine was "an international armed conflict between
   Ukraine and the Russian Federation."

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