KIEV, Ukraine — The office of President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said Wednesday that he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had a similar understanding about what was needed to achieve a cease-fire in southeastern Ukraine, but it retracted a statement it had made earlier in the day that said the two men had agreed to a “lasting cease-fire.”
The initial statement, posted on the presidential website, went too far in describing the results of a telephone call between the two leaders as having reached a cease-fire, said a spokesman, noting that a revised version would be posted shortly.
The change echoed statements from Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, who had earlier said that Russia could not negotiate a cease-fire because it was not a party to the conflict but that the opinions of the two presidents overlapped.
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