Interfax quotes "Kommersant" as saying that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will visit Moscow next week to discuss the Ukraine crisis, adding that Steinmeier might first stop in Kyiv.
The latest map from Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council:
Via dpa:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has accused Russia and the Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine of abandoning the peace accords agreed in September.
In a telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel late Tuesday Poroshenko said a recent inflow of troops and heavy weapons was evidence of this.
"The representatives of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics have practically rejected implementing the Minsk agreements, while there is no progress in Russia's implementation," Poroshenko told Merkel according to his office.
News agencies and other sources report heavy shelling in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Multiple explosions early today were said to have struck the city, one of two provincial capitals held by pro-Russian separatists.
An AFP correspondent said mortar shells were being fired from an area near the city center toward government-held positions around Donetsk's international airport.
Shelling occurs almost daily around the airport despite a September 5 cease-fire aimed to end the conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people since April. Each side has blamed the other for the continued fighting.