This ends our live blogging for September 14. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.
Steinmeier: Kyiv agrees to new truce for east:
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says Ukrainian leaders have agreed to observe a new cease-fire for the country's east.
Steinmeier was speaking in Kyiv on September 14 at a joint press conference with his French and Ukrainian counterparts, Jean-Marc Ayrault and Pavlo Klimkin, following talks with President Petro Poroshenko.
"We came with a promise from Moscow that effective [September 15] there will be a truce that will last at least a week," Steinmeier also said, a day after the leaders of the Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared a unilateral cease-fire.
The sides earlier agreed to abide by a truce to coincide with the start of the school year on September 1, but it failed to stop the fighting between government forces and separatists that has killed more than 9,500 people since April 2014.
Ayrault urged the Ukrainian leadership to commit themselves more fully to the February 2015 Minsk agreement brokered by Berlin and Paris, saying, "There is no Plan B."
The peace plan envisages holding elections in separatist-held areas and partial autonomy for the country's eastern regions.
Klimkin said an agreement with Russia over "the sequence of steps and guarantees" for implementing the peace terms was needed. (AP, Reuters, dpa, AFP)
German, French ministers in Kyiv to revive peace deal:
The German and French foreign ministers are in Ukraine to shore up a 2015 peace deal amid continuing fighting between government forces and separatists in the country's east.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Jean-Marc Ayrault held talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on September 14 to discuss ways to secure a durable cease-fire and implement the political provisions of the February 2015 Minsk agreement, which was brokered by Berlin and Paris.
On September 13, the leaders of the Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared a unilateral cease-fire starting midnight on September 14, and Steinmeier said Kyiv agreed to observe the truce.
Ayrault said an agreement between Kyiv and separatists to withdraw their forces in three areas of eastern Ukraine could be signed next week.
The two sides earlier agreed to abide by a cease-fire to coincide with the start of the school year on September 1, which failed to completely stop the fighting that has already killed more than 9,500 people since April 2014. (AP, Reuters)