Russia must continue to engage constructively in negotiations in the implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine it started and stoked.

Ambassador James Gilmore, the Permanent Representative of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE, stated this after a joint meeting with French counterpart Ambassador Christine Fages in Vienna on September 13, according to a press release on the website of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE.

"Russia must continue to engage constructively in negotiations in the implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the conflict it started and stoked," the ambassadors of the U.S. and French missions to the OSCE said.

Gilmore praised the September 7 prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia that saw some 35 prisoners repatriated, including 24 sailors detained by Moscow in the Kerch Straits in 2018, as well as long-imprisoned Crimean filmmaker Oleh Sentsov.

The ambassadors also emphasized that the United States and France "stand together against Russian aggression against Ukraine, in support of fundamental human rights."

Both countries believe that the OSCE can play greater role in preventing, preparing for, and confronting security challenges in Europe and Eurasia. Foremost among those challenges was continued Russian aggression in Ukraine and its occupation and purported annexation of Crimea.

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