AFP reports ahead of tonight's talks that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is hoping to emerge with a concrete plan for a lasting truce in Ukraine.
The meeting will include Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, in addition to Steinmeier.
"It is all about finding a road map toward a sustainable cease-fire and a framework for effective border controls," Steinmeier said in a statement issued ahead of the evening talks.
"Only in this way can eastern Ukraine calm down and Kiev continue a national dialogue that appropriately involves the people in the east."
Steinmeier cautioned that "a simple recipe does not exist", adding: "That is why it is so important in my view that we all sit down at a table at this time".
The German minister also said that "the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine is currently drawing a lot of political attention" and that "we must take care of this".
"But we must not neglect the search for political ways out of the crisis in Ukraine. We urgently need new political impetus -- otherwise we run the risk of treading water, or of going backward and re-entering an intensified spiral of escalation."
The violence and proximity of all involved are on everyone's minds, including whoever printed the menu for tonight's Russian-Ukrainian-French-German talks, judging by this tweet from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Klimkin. "Paris-Moscow" potato. And couldn't they have gone with one of arugula's *other* names?
The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council tweeted this a short while ago, saying the "situation of the 'humanitarian convoy' unchanged - in Russia, our customs officers require documents for crossing, not given."
The pro-Russian side escalating further. This morning separatists downed another military jet, a major column of tanks and armed vehicles was said to have been spotted, now this...