Russia, Germany, France, meet to revive failed Ukraine ceasefire

Four key foreign ministers are convening Tuesday in Paris for talks on the Ukraine crisis to try to revive a peace deal as military and economic retaliation in the conflict has become more entrenched.
According to dpa, the ministers - from Russia, Germany, Ukraine and France - already met several times in the spring to try to implement a February ceasefire signed in Minsk as accusations of violations and bullets fly over a buffer zone between pro-Russian separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine.
Tensions have been further inflamed by a United States decision to install military equipment in jittery North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO allies who are neighbours of Russia.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the equipment includes tanks, infantry transport and artillery for Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.
"We each agree that, while we do not seek cold level or hot war with Russia, we will defend our allies," Carter said during a visit to Estonia.
Since Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, other states in Europe have expressed worries about a similar move in their territories.
Fighting in Ukraine - which has killed 6,400 people since April 2014, according to the United Nations - increased over the weekend, and at least six people were killed. Ukrainian government troops and the separatists accused each other Sunday of heavy weapons fire in breach of the Minsk truce.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the ceasefire violations on the Ukrainian military, but observers with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, said this month that both the rebels and the Ukrainian military are at fault.
The four-way talks, which have failed to achieve any significant movement towards upholding the ceasefire, are being held one day after the European Union renewed economic sanctions against Russia for six months until January 31 and Russia retaliated by prolonging a ban on EU food imports.
Before departing for Paris, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the ceasefire has been violated daily and the situation is deteriorating.
"All parties to the conflict must ensure that the military escalation cannot reach such an extent that the situation gets out of control - both militarily and politically," he said.
Carter announced the US military support after meeting his Baltic counterparts in Tallinn after weeks of speculation about such a move. He said equipment will be used for training and will be stationed primarily on a rotational basis in the six countries.
The Lithuanian Defence Ministry said the equipment could arrive by early next year.
"Together with the pre-positioned equipment, persistent presence of that scale would send a sufficiently strong message to any potential aggressor," Estonian Defence Minister Sven Mikser said.
While the sanctions and talk of military equipment has undermined hopes for significant diplomatic progress, officials have expressed impatience.
"What is going to take place in Paris ... should not be yet another talk show," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told journalists over the weekend in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.
"Either we achieve concrete results, or we show that Russia doesn't want the implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said.