(ANSA) - MOSCOW - Russia is not against the deployment of an international monitoring team to the Donbass region, but Kiev must reach an agreement with Donetsk and Lugansk, said Vladimir Putin emphasizing that the Minsk process has not made any progress due to Ukraine's non-constructive stance.

The exchange of prisoners, for example, was stopped at the request of Kiev. ''Christmas and New Year are coming soon, let's make an effort, a gesture of goodwill'', Putin added, addressing Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko. He then denied the presence of Russian military in the Donbass. With regard to the ongoing negotiations, Putin said that the US are ''fully involved'' beyond the Normandy format. ''We are not opposed - he underlined - to the US entry to that format''.

''Someone has torn us apart, but we need to reunite'' he said, pointing out that Russia and Ukraine are made up of ''one people, someone says that Ukraine must develop independently and if people really want to do this then all right, it makes no sense to go against the will of the peoples, but the new tendency all around the world is quite the opposite: peoples speaking different languages and belonging to different traditions come together''. (ANSA).