(ANSA) - ROME - The new ceasefire in eastern Ukraine ''seems to be working and for the time being we need to focus our efforts to ensure that the conditions on the ground do not change. Eu sanctions against Russia were effective and the deadline will be in mid-March. Neither before nor after''. This is what the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lapo Pistelli, reiterated speaking about the new truce began on December 9 between separatists and security forces in Ukraine, with the mediation of the OSCE. '' The sanctions have proved effective - Pistelli said immediately after returning to Italy from Moscow, where he was on an official visit - but it is necessary to go beyond''.

Speaking at a meeting on the EU's role in Russian-Ukrainian crisis organized in Rome by the Institute for International Affairs in cooperation with the Institute of World Policy (Kiev), Pistelli added: ''All the involved parties are committed seriously to improving the current situation. We are working to get a buffer zone for the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the ground and to obtain, by the end of the year, a prisoner exchange''. With regard to the economic crisis that Moscow is facing and the sharp ruble fluctuations, according to Pistelli this situation ''is only partially connected to the crisis in Ukraine'', being, on the other hand, '' more related to structural weakness of the country's economy, which depends heavily on fluctuations in the price of oil and gas''. About the crisis between Moscow and Kiev, Pistelli said that ''a change of pace is needed'', along with ''the development of a strategy, which so far has never been established, on the EU's eastern borders''. (ANSA).