Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a new military doctrine on Thursday naming Russia as the main military threat to Ukraine, according to a statement on the presidential website.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will meet along with the French and German leaders in Paris early in October to discuss efforts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
Ukraine's parliament on Monday voted for constitutional changes to give its eastern regions a special status that it hopes will blunt their separatist drive, but divisions among pro-Western lawmakers suggested they will have a rougher ride to become law.
Separatist rebels have launched a push using tanks and artillery towards Ukrainian government positions west of the big regional city of Donetsk in an escalation of the conflict in the east, the Kiev military said on Wednesday.
Some Russian soldiers are quitting the army because of the conflict in Ukraine, several soldiers and human rights activists have told Reuters. Their accounts call into question the Kremlin's continued assertions that no Russian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine, and that any Russians fighting alongside rebels there are volunteers.
Ukraine's leader warned on Tuesday that a war with pro-Russian separatists could still break out again as its military said the rebels had greatly stepped up attacks and widened the area of their operations despite a ceasefire.
Ukraine's military and pro-Russian rebels accused each other on Friday of intensifying attacks in separatist eastern territories despite a two-month-old ceasefire deal.
Ukraine's military said on Tuesday pro-Russian rebels were amassing heavy weapons in depots around separatist-held Donetsk city despite a ceasefire deal.
Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists have exchanged dozens of prisoners in east Ukraine, a Ukrainian Security Council aide confirmed on Sunday, a step toward implementing an internationally brokered peace deal.
Assuming a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels in the east holds, the implementation of a special constitutional status for the region is likely to be very difficult, according to Latvia's foreign minister.
Germany's Foreign Minister warned Kiev, Moscow and separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine on Saturday of the "high price" of violating a ceasefire agreement as fighting intensified hours before its start.
The leaders of France and Germany flew out of Moscow in the dead of night after five hours of talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday, with little to announce to end fighting in Ukraine beyond a promise to keep talking.
Separatist rockets streaked across hills in eastern Ukraine on Monday as rebels pounded the positions of Ukrainian government troops holding a strategic rail town, while both sides prepared to mobilise more forces for combat.
Civilians were killed on both sides in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine on Friday, while an attempt to reopen peace talks in neighboring Belarus was aborted before it began.
Nine Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in fighting Russian-backed separatists in the past 24 hours, the Kiev military said on Tuesday, as rebels fought to encircle a key town straddling transport routes between their two strongholds.
Ukrainian troops recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks, as thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march on Sunday.
Ukraine plans a "Day of Silence" on Tuesday to try to rebuild a ceasefire with pro-Russian separatists that has all but disintegrated, but accompanying peace talks -- the first in three months -- look likely to be delayed.
Fresh volleys of artillery fire were heard across many parts of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, a Ukrainian government statement said, after Kiev warned again of rebel preparations for a fresh offensive.
Ukrainian government forces have no intention of renouncing a ceasefire in the separatist-held east of the country, a military spokesman said on Thursday.
East Ukraine's rebel stronghold Donetsk was pummeled on Sunday by the heaviest shelling in a month, and the OSCE said it spotted an armored column of troops without insignia in rebel territory that Kiev said proved Moscow had sent reinforcements.
