Minsk II

Photo: RIA Novosti

Ukrainian security forces continue to place weapons and military equipment along the contact line in Donbass, which is prohibited by the Minsk agreements, Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) militia spokesman Andrei Marochko said Saturday.

A new ceasefire agreement must enter into force in Eastern Ukraine as of Monday, reported BNR.

It was negotiated by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine during a meeting at the Conference on Security in Munich.

16 European countries, including Bulgaria, will seek a new agreement with Russia on arms control, reported Reuters.

"European security is in danger," stated German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "We need to have more conversations with Russia, not less,  no matter how complicated our relations are at the moment."

Russian President Vladimir Putin supports the deployment of armed OSCE observers in eastern Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Putin was in Berlin on Wednesday where he spoke about the implementation of the 2015 Minsk peace agreement with French, German, and Ukrainian leaders.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "no miracles" were achieved on the Ukraine crisis on Oct. 20, but talks with the country's leader and his Russian and French counterparts did lead to some progress on ending a deadlock in the peace process.

The current ceasefire in the war in eastern Ukraine, the so-called Minsk-2 agreement, was signed last February, but they never actually ceased firing. At least a thousand more people have been killed in the fighting since then, and on one night last month (Aug. 14) the monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recorded 175 separate ceasefire violations.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Aug. 24 accused Russia of sending major military backup to pro-Moscow rebels, speaking just ahead of talks on the conflict with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will meet in Berlin on Aug. 24 to give a new push to European efforts to tackle the biggest migrant crisis in 50 years.

In a statement of its spokesperson, the European External Action Service (EEAS) noted on Tuesday that the renewed escalation of violence in Ukraine violated the spirit and letter of the Minsk ceasefire.

The EU refers to the latest attacks on several areas controlled by the government near Starohnativka on Monday and Tuesday.

Ukraine lost eight soldiers July 15 in a dramatic spike in fighting with pro-Russian gunmen that further imperilled a truce Washington's top European envoy is desperately trying to salvage in Kiev.