Ukraine president: Ceasefire will start at 11:00GMT Friday if Minsk meeting goes ahead

Ukraine president: Ceasefire will start at 11:00GMT Friday if Minsk meeting goes ahead. (RT).

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko says he’ll order a ceasefire for government troops fighting self-defense forces in the southeast of country if the meeting of Ukrainian, Russian and OSCE envoys takes place in Belarus on Friday as planned.

"At 14:00 local time (11:00GMT Friday), provided the [Minsk] meeting takes place, I will call on the General Staff to set up a bilateral ceasefire and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will begin tomorrow," Petro Poroshenko said on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales on Thursday.

12:41 GMT: Moscow is waiting for a response to Vladimir Putin’s 7-step peace plan on de-escalating the Ukrainian crisis from both sides involved in the conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

“We expect that the subsequent reaction will come from Kiev and the self-defense forces,” Lavrov said. “Russia has done and will continue doing everything it can to initiating dialogue, starting with the most important task of announcing a ceasefire.”

However, the minister warned about the “war party,” which immediately intensifies its role every time “a glimmer of hope to change the situation from military confrontation to a political settlement” appears in Ukraine.

06:44 GMT: Vladimir Putin’s seven-step plan to stop hostilities in eastern Ukraine aims to help Kiev authorities and self-defense forces in the region to coordinate actions in de-escalation of Ukraine’s crisis, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“[We] hope that the calls [of Putin over Ukraine] will be heard first of all in Kiev, Lugansk and Donetsk,” said Lavrov. “We will, together with OSCE, help the conflicting sides to advance in stabilizing the situation [in the country].”More here.