File Photo: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (AP Photo).
Germany's foreign minister met his Russian, Ukrainian and French counterparts in Berlin on Monday evening to discuss how the Minsk agreement can be put into action as violence intensified in eastern Ukraine.
"It's eight weeks since the Minsk agreement and without doubt over these two months there has been a certain calming of the situation in east Ukraine," Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters ahead of the talks in Berlin.
"Although the ceasefire is holding predominantly in east Ukraine, fighting is still taking place in two to three spots," he added.
The ceasefire agreement, brokered in Minsk in mid-February, is still technically in force although each side accuses the other of intensifying attacks in the past few days. On Monday, one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and six others wounded in rebel-held territory.
Steinmeier said the Minsk agreement went beyond a ceasefire and included how to provide humanitarian aid to the population, to organise an exchange of prisoners and to initiate a political process that would prepare the ground for elections.
© Thomson Reuters 2015