PHOTO: ALEKSEY FILIPPOV / AFPThe leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France will hold telephone talks on Monday, officials said, amid a fresh flare up in fighting in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Russian-backed rebels. The diplomatic phone talks on Ukraine are also the first since French President Emmanuel Macron took office. On Monday he is to hold talks in Kiev on "the path to restoring Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the State Department said. In Brussels he is set to hold talks with both EU and Nato officials "on resolving the conflict in Ukraine". A deal brokered by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany in the Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015 has hit a wall but is still viewed by those involved as the only way of unwinding Ukraine's war.

Source: The Local July 22, 2017 11:26 UTC