BUCHAREST, April 21 - No talks on lifting Western sanctions against Russia should take place until Moscow completely withdraws its military presence from Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Any sanctions relief in return for a partial fulfillment by Russia of the conditions of the Minsk peace deal "will be a direct threat to solving the situation in Donbas," the region of eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists are battling Ukrainian government forces.

Kiev says Russia has sent troops and heavy weapons to the region, but Moscow has repeatedly denied this.

Extended at the end of last year, the Minsk deal signed by Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany aims to give Ukraine back control of its border with Russia, see all heavy weapons withdrawn, return hostages and allow an internationally monitored local election in the east.

Speaking after talks with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in Bucharest, Poroshenko said he was convinced that early sanctions relief "can prompt Russia to continue its aggressive actions .... The Minsk agreements must be implemented in their entirety."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that the first formal meeting with Russia's envoy to the alliance in almost two years underscored the deep East-West divide over Ukraine.

"It was reconfirmed that we disagree on the facts, on the narrative and the responsibilities in and around Ukraine," he said.

The war in Ukraine’s east rages on, however, with one senior Pentagon official telling Situation Report, Foreign Policy magazine’s security brief, that there are 7,000 Russian troops still inside Ukraine, advising pro-Moscow rebels and engaging in the fighting themselves, a

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in the Syrian conflict to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad hasn’t made a dent in the ability of Russia to send more equipment to Ukraine, either. Over the past year, Russia has shipped new rocket launchers, artillery, drones, and advanced electronic warfare equipment to the eastern Donbas region.

“I think they can sustain this for a considerable period of time,” the official said. “Our view is that they could sustain this easily for 24 months” even if oil prices remain low and the Russian economy continues to stagnate. Despite an announcement last month that the Russian military would begin to withdraw forces from Syria, instead Moscow sent more advanced helicopters, and the level of daily airstrikes has remained steady.

The NATO talks, some analysts say, likely won’t amount to much. But they’re a start. Olga Oliker, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that “right now, the Russians are at the table in the interest of simply being at the table. I do think a part of the Russian purpose in meeting with NATO is ‘be aware of us, pay attention to us, and you can’t discount us,’” and not much more. (rt/fp/ez)