Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing on Saturday before an Asia-Pacific summit starts, Russian news agencies said on Friday.
Russia's border with eastern Ukraine has softened to the point of becoming completely porous, while an internal Ukrainian dividing line hardens, NATO's top general said on Monday, cautioning about the risk of another "frozen conflict."
Pro-Russian separatists will vote to set up a breakaway regional leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday aiming to take their war-torn region closer to Russia and defying Kiev and the West as the big guns still boom across the territory.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone that Sunday's planned elections in eastern Ukraine were illegitimate and would not be recognized by European leaders, a Berlin government spokesman said on Friday.
