Ukraine's new president Petro Poroshenko has vowed to meet with a trilateral commission each day. Representatives for Russia, the EU, and the OSCE are reportedly part of those meetings. Today, after only the first meeting, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has indicated that there may have been a breakthrough:

"As a result of the work, the sides reached a mutual understanding on key stages of the implementation of the plan and on a list of priorities which will contribute to a de-escalation of the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.



Moscow did not immediately comment and Poroshenko has made few details of his plan public.



The talks are being mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a security and human rights watchdog. At the first talks on Sunday, with Russian envoy Mikhail Zurabov, Poroshenko said violence must end this week.

Yesterday Poroshenko said that this needs to be the last week of fighting, and it was imperative for all sides to come to an agreement to restore peace.

But Russia and Ukraine have reportedly been on the same page before, only to find that Russia had a very different understanding of the facts on the ground than the rest of the parties involved in negotiations. Is this time different? This is the first time such a diplomatic breakthrough has been heralded since the inauguration of Poroshenko in an election that Moscow seems to be recognizing. Time will tell if Moscow is satisfied by the agreement, and whether the pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine abide by any agreement brokered by Kiev and Moscow.

