President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko continued phone consultations with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.

Petro Poroshenko and Angela Merkel discussed the situation on the adherence to the ceasefire regime. Particularly, the President noted that the Ukrainian party had been consistently adhering to the agreements. The Head of State emphasized that he expected the Russian party to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk protocol: withdrawal of troops, ensuring the closure of the border and establishment of buffer area on it.

The parties also discussed the fulfillment of functions of monitoring and verification of the ceasefire regime by the OSCE. In this context, Petro Poroshenko expressed concern over the fact the OSCE still hadn’t provided UAVs that had been stipulated by the preliminary agreements.

The President expressed gratitude to the Chancellor for humanitarian initiatives of Germany held pursuant to the agreements achieved in the course of the visit of German Chancellor to Kyiv. Particularly, Germany allocates EUR 25 million for the construction of housing for internally displaced persons and EUR 500 million in loan guarantees for the restoration of the infrastructure in the Donbas.

The President informed that under his instruction, Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman had held a meeting with participation of representatives of central and local government, German Community on International Cooperation (GIZ) and German Embassy in Ukraine in order to implement humanitarian projects for the funds of German government. In particular, the participants of the meeting discussed the delivery and distribution of German humanitarian aid in Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the construction of small towns for more than 4000 internally displaced persons.

Also, Angela Merkel and Petro Poroshenko negotiated energy issue, particularly the results of recent tripartite consultations on gas issue held in Berlin.