In a day of negotiations with French and German officials aimed at ending an eight-year separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine acknowledged they had failed to make any progress.
The lack of progress was a setback for efforts to defuse the larger Ukraine problem, in which Russia has amassed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders, heightening fears of war.
After Thursday's discussions in Berlin, Russian ambassador Dmitry Kozak told a late-night briefing that Russia and Ukraine's interpretations of a 2015 agreement aimed at ending combat between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces could not be reconciled. “We did not manage to overcome this,” he said.
Andriy Yermak, Ukraine's ambassador, said there had been no breakthrough, but all sides decided to continue negotiating. “I hope that we will meet again very soon and continue these negotiations. Everyone is determined to achieve a result,” he said.
Despite a putative truce, the violence in the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions, collectively known as the Donbass, continues. Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) report numerous infractions on a daily basis, sometimes numbering in the hundreds.
Since 2014, Ukraine claims that 15,000 people have been slain.
In February 2015, representatives from Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, and the two separatist areas signed a 13-point deal in Minsk, which was approved by French and German leaders.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of attempting to alter the deal by cherry-picking only the parts that benefit it. Ukraine has stated that it is committed to the agreement.
“The Ukrainian side is set on constructive dialogue. Everyone confirmed today that we have the Minsk agreements and they need to be fulfilled,” Yermak said.
Ukraine denies Moscow's claim that it has no involvement in the crisis, claiming that Russia has forces fighting alongside separatists inside Ukraine.
Kyiv refuses to negotiate with separatist leaders, but President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has requested direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has so far rejected. Russia denies preparing an invasion of Ukraine, but claims it wants to impose "red lines" to prevent its former Soviet neighbour from joining NATO and establishing bases and weapons there.