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Despite new cooperation in the wake of the Paris attacks, the EU is said to want to keep pressure on Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reported citing sources in Brussels.
EU leaders are expected to discuss the sanctions at their mid-December summit unless the issue is resolved before then, as happened in June. Any decision must be backed by all 28 member states.
Officials say three options are being discussed: extending the sanctions again by another six months, a one-year rollover or a shorter three-to-four month extension to signal to Moscow the bloc's recognition of some concessions over Ukraine, according to the report.
People familiar with the discussions in Brussels said there is broad agreement that economic pressure should be kept on Russia until the peace plan brokered in Minsk, Belarus, in February is fully implemented.
U.S. resolve has also stayed firm, officials say. On Sunday, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Turkey, President Barack Obama discussed sanctions in a meeting with the French, German, Italian and British leaders.
The White House said the leaders "reiterated that sanctions against Russia must remain in place until full implementation of the Minsk agreements is achieved."
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in Berlin on Tuesday that sanctions against Moscow should be rolled over and pledged ongoing support for Kyiv should it "continue to live up to its promises to its own people and maintain the trust of the international community."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has emerged this week as a leading figure in talks of a combined global effort against Islamic State in its base in Syria and elsewhere, the report notes. Ukrainian officials fear Moscow may exploit that cooperation to undermine U.S. and European support for their country, according to the report.
As reported earlier, the EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia in two stages in the summer of 2014 in response to Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied Western charges that it supplied and directed the rebels.