AKIPRESS.COM - France's President Francois Hollande said Monday he expects further progress at the negotiations on the situation in Ukraine that will take place in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, on January 15.

"I will go to Astana on January 15 under the sole condition – that we manage to make further progress… And I think we will," Hollande said, RIA-Novosti reported.

In December 2014, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said that the meeting would be held in the so-called Normandy format, and leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine would meet in Astana on January 15.