MINSK, Belarus — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said early Wednesday that he has support for a peace plan from leaders who attended a summit meeting in Minsk, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported.
But there were no indications that would mean an immediate end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces.
Putin said separately he had an “overall positive assessment” of Tuesday’s meetings, including face-to-face talks with Poroshenko.
Putin said there was no discussion of a cease-fire in Ukraine because Russia is not a party to the conflict. Moscow is accused by Kiev and the West of arming and supporting the rebels — a charge the Kremlin denies.
In addition to their one-on-one meeting, Putin and Poroshenko also met in a general session with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus, and top European Union officials.
The meeting came on the same day that Ukraine had said it captured 10 Russian soldiers who had come over the border.
Putin did not directly address that but appeared to tacitly recognize it and suggested that the soldiers simply had become lost.
“Ukrainian soldiers have found themselves on our side, too,” he told reporters.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine also had expanded to a new front.
The area around the city of Novoazovsk, strategically positioned on roads linking Russia with Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March, has come under heavy artillery firing in the past two days.
The general summit meeting began with a stiff and awkward handshake between Poroshenko and Putin, their first meeting since a brief encounter at a D-Day remembrance ceremony in June.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters the talks at the summit were “tough,” but stopped short of saying that they had failed.
