More from the EU-Russia-Ukraine gas meeting taking place in Berlin:
Ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan said he hoped a compromise on a "fair market price for gas" would be reached during the meeting.
He said a price that can be found at "European hubs, on European markets."
Here is today's map of the military situation in eastern Ukraine courtesy of the National Security and Defense Council:
Latest from our news desk:
A senior Kremlin official said on September 26 that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko have discussed by telephone the possibility of a meeting.
Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yury Ushakov, told reporters in Moscow on September 25 that Putin and Poroshenko "are, in phone calls, discussing a possible personal contact in a bilateral or international format ... with the participation of the German chancellor and the French president."
Ushakov added that the exact date of such a meeting is not known.
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted an unnamed German government spokesman as saying that there are no current plans for German, French, Russian and Ukrainian leaders to meet, adding though that such talks are not ruled out if helpful.
Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Moscow of sending in troops and arming the separatists in Ukraine's east. Moscow denies this. (Reuters, Interfax and ITAR-TASS)
This article (in Russian) links the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic to the circle around former President Viktor Yanukovych: