Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia will likely have to reach agreements regarding Ukraine in the future but feels betrayed by the breakdown of the Minsk agreements.
Mr Putin said Germany and France - which brokered ceasefire agreements in the Belarusian capital Minsk between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 - had betrayed Russia and were now pumping Ukraine with weapons.
"Trust, of course, is almost at zero... but ultimately, in the end, an agreement will have to be reached," Mr Putin said on Friday while in Kyrgyzstan.
"I have said many times that we are ready for these agreements, and we are open (to them)," he added.
In an interview published in Germany's Zeit magazine on Wednesday, former German chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to "give Ukraine time" to build up its defences.
Mr Putin said he was "disappointed" by Ms Merkel's comments.
Opposition figure Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for spreading "false information" about the Russian army. Source: Getty, AFP / Yuri Kochetkov
In a sign of Russia's clampdown on public dissent , a Moscow court sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" about the army.
Mr Yashin had discussed in a YouTube video evidence uncovered by foreign journalists of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Russia denies committing war crimes.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Mr Yashin urged supporters to continue opposing the war.
In Ukraine, the fiercest fighting was near the eastern towns of and Avdiivka, Donetsk region's governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a television interview.
Five civilians were killed and two wounded in Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk over the previous day, he said early on Friday.
"The entire front line is being shelled," he said, adding that Russian troops were also trying to advance near Lyman, which was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in November.
In Bakhmut and other parts of the Donetsk region that neighbours Luhansk province, Ukrainian forces countered with barrages from rocket launchers, a Reuters witness said.
In a report on Friday, the Ukrainian general staff said its forces had attacked Russian positions and troop assembly points in at least half a dozen towns in the south of Ukraine.
Russian losses amounted to about 240 wounded, with three ammunition depots and about various military equipment destroyed, it added.
News agency Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.
