Prior to his election, unrest had gripped the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan movement and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. After an informal meeting of heads of state at the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of D Day in Normandy on 6 June 2014, it was devised that a group should be created to facilitate dialogue between the Ukrainian government and the Russian government.[2][3] Relations between Russia and Ukraine were extremely tense following the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and Russia had also been accused by Ukraine and western leaders of having fomented the unrest in eastern and southern Ukraine.