Ukraine crisis talks in Brussels and Berlin

Talks to address the increasing violence in eastern Ukraine brought 19 EU foreign ministers to Brussels on Monday. At the same time in Berlin, officials from the German, French, Ukrainian and Russian Foreign ministries began attempts to revive a truce that has faltered constantly since it was agreed upon last September.

Before the meeting in Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said he hoped the peace talks "will help to get a real ceasefire in place."

Last week's rush visit to Moscow by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, an effort to persuade Russia's Vladimir Putin to come back to the negotiating table over the conflict, ended without significant results.

The duo is now planning to meet Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Minsk on Wednesday.

Minsk meeting only on several conditions: Putin

Putin, however, warned that the summit planned in the Belarus capital would only take place if the leaders agreed on a "number of points" by then.

"We will be aiming for Wednesday, if by that time we manage to agree on a number of points which we've been intensely discussing lately," Putin told Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in televised remarks on Sunday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged realistic expectations for the Minsk meeting before heading into the Brussels talks: "We hope that the open points can be settled but I have to say again, it is not yet sure."

Other German officials say the Russian president hasn't shown much desire for compromise and they acknowledge in private that he has repeatedly broken promises in the past.

One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the news agency Reuters that Putin had no incentive to secure a ceasefire now, while separatists are on the offensive in eastern Ukraine.

"He can sit back and wait as the pressure steadily builds on Ukraine and its leaders," the official said.

Uptick in violence

Merkel is currently on a whirlwind North America trip, where the subject of Ukraine is set to dominate her meeting with US President Barack Obama. There has been a sign of a rift between Washington and the EU over the question of providing Ukraine's government with weapons.

After a relative lull in December, violence in eastern Ukraine picked back up in January, with government forces and separatists engaged in a nearly constant struggle over the city of Donetsk. Reuters reported that nine Ukrainian servicemen had been killed within the past 24 hours on Monday, citing a military spokesman.

es/rg (AFP, AP, Reuters)