Our correspondent in Munich, Steve Gutterman, filed this update from the security conference:
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier noted some progress in negotiations, including on the thorny question of how to conduct elections in areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
But he said that all sides were still "a long way off from resolving the conflict."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said foreign ministers planned to come together again in early March in Paris for a full-fledged meeting.
Lots of Ukraine news coming out of the Munich Security Conference today. Here's another dispatch from our correspondent there, Steve Gutterman:
Ukrainian President: 'Mr. Putin, This Is Your Aggression'
By RFE/RL
MUNICH, Germany -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sharply criticized his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and said the security of Europe and the world are at stake in Ukraine.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, Poroshenko called on Russia to fulfill its obligations under a deal aimed to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine by withdrawing Russian troops and ceding control of the border.
"Mr. Putin, this is not a civil war in Ukraine, this is your aggression...this is your soldiers who have entered my country," Poroshenko said in English.
More than 9,000 combatants and civilians have been killed in eastern Ukraine since fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists began in April 2014, following Russia's seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
Fighting has decreased dramatically since September 2015, but main aspects of the Minsk II deal to resolve the conflict have gone unfulfilled amid mutual recriminations.
Poroshenko said that it is "not only Ukraine, not only Ukrainian security" that is at stake. "This is European and global security," he said.
He warned that Putin is threatening Europe and its values, saying there is an illiberal "alternative Europe" and its "name is Vladimir Putin."
Putin did not attend the annual Munich conference. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking earlier in the day at the conference, blamed Ukraine for problems with implementation of the Minsk II agreement.
Russia's Ukraine Interference In Focus At Security Conference
By RFE/RL
MUNICH, Germany -- German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivered a rebuke to Russia at a prominent security conference, saying that "the question of war and peace has returned to the European continent" following Moscow's seizure of Crimea and backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Steinmeier's remarks opened the second day of the annual Munich Security Conference.
He did not identify Russia by name. But he said that after the end of the Cold War and the violent 20th century, "we had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good" and that "borders would not be put into question."
The "turbulence" on Europe's eastern edge is one of several major challenges the European Union is facing, Steinmeier said.
EU unity is also being threatened by a refugee crisis fueled by the five-year war in Syria.
NATO Chief Says Russia Destabilizing Europe, Criticizes 'Nuclear Rhetoric'
By RFE/RL
MUNICH, Germany -- NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that an "assertive Russia is destabilizing Europe" and that Moscow's "rhetoric and posturing" about its nuclear might is "aimed at intimidating its neighbors" and undermining trust.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 13, Stoltenberg said that NATO does not want "confrontation" with Russia or a "new Cold War," but that its response must be firm.
He said that NATO's moves to strengthen defenses on its eastern flank are just that -- defensive -- and designed "not to wage war but to prevent war."
Stoltenberg said he expects further moves to strengthen those defenses at a NATO summit in Warsaw in July.
He called for "more defense" as well as "more dialogue" with Russia.
Stoltenberg voiced concern about an increase in Russian references to the country's nuclear might. He said "nobody should think that" nuclear weapons can be used in a conventional war.
Russia occupied and seized control of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has given military backing to separatists whose war with Kyiv's forces has killed more than 9,000 people in eastern Ukraine.