Al-Jazeera.com :
Ukraine and Russia have signalled there could be progress in settling a festering row over gas supplies after three meetings between the nations in the space of ten hours.
The meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko in Milan on Friday, the first since the two sides agreed a ceasefire in Crimea last September, raised hopes of an EU-backed resolution of the broader conflict embroiling the Soviet-era allies.
Any optimism, however, was tentative, as both leaders drew the line at saying an agreement had been formalised.
“We have some certain progress (on the gas issue) but left some details which need to be discussed,” Poroshenko said after the final meeting, which was the first time the two men had met alone since August last year. From Rory Challands, Al Jazeera’s Russia correspondent:
“Vladimir Putin seemed in a particularly jovial mood when he met the press in Milan on Friday evening.
Sometimes the Russian president can be reserved and curt, but here he was, holding forth and cracking jokes with journalists to such an extent that it lead to one Russian saying the president was being unusually salty for such an event.
So what had happened during his meetings with Petro Poroshenko, Angela Merkel, and the other leaders assembled in the northern Italian city? No dramatic breakthrough on stopping fighting in Eastern Ukraine, it seems.
There was more talk of pushing forward the 12 points of the Minsk agreements and enforcing a separation line between Ukraine’s army and the rebels, but nothing the Europeans could point to as success. But then, maybe that suits Putin just fine.
