Hollande and Poroshenko to visit Merkel in Berlin next Monday / Photo from UNIAN

The fighting flared earlier this week, killing at least two Ukrainian soldiers and several civilians, Reuters wrote.

The clashes near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Mariupol in the southeast and at the militant-held town of Horlivka further frayed an increasingly tenuous ceasefire as Ukraine prepared to mark its Independence Day next week.

"It's worrying," Fabius told reporters ahead of the Berlin meeting.

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"Military operations must stop and arms be withdrawn... Secondly, we need to right conditions for elections in the Donbas," Reuters reported quoted Fabius as saying.