[1] The group had a substantial role in mediating the Minsk agreements between 2014 and 2015 while further meetings in 2022 failed to deescalate rising tensions prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Normandy Format was predated by the Joint Geneva Statement (Agreement), signed by Ukraine, Russia, the European Union, and the United States in April 2014.

[3][4] The group was created on 6 June 2014, when leaders from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine met on the margins of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day allied landings in Normandy.

[7] This was precipitated by a joint French-Germany diplomatic plan, which was negotiated overnight for over sixteen hours while the group met in Minsk.

The meeting lasted four hours and resulted in the participants agreed that elections in territories controlled by DPR and LPR should be held according to the rules set out by Minsk II .

[15] On 21 September, "continuing bickering" was cited as causing "a political tug-of-war" over the preliminaries to negotiations, as they had been since the Normandy Format meeting in 2016 in Berlin.

[20] On 16 October, French and German leaders decided in favour of another Normandy Format meeting,[21] which took place on 9 December 2019 in Paris, France, when Putin an Zelenskyy met the first and only time until 2022.

[29] France and Germany continue to be involved in peace negotiations between the two countries, while also providing support to Ukraine and denouncing Russia.