The leaders of Russia, Germany and France have agreed to ask the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to help with the implementation of the latest cease-fire agreement in eastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande spoke by phone on March 2.
According to a German government spokesman, they agreed that the OSCE should play a greater role as observers of the second Minsk cease-fire agreement and the removal of heavy weapons.
They sent a request to the OSCE to publish a daily report on the current developments.
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Moscow and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine must implement the cease-fire or face "consequences" that could further hit Russia's faltering economy.