French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at a European Union summit on Friday that the situation in Ukraine remained very worrying, and that he had heard reports coming in of several casualties.
Macron added he had not seen evidence at this stage of any Russian de-escalation regarding Ukraine.
Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine said on Friday they planned to evacuate their breakaway region's residents to Russia, marking a dramatic turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow could use to justify an invasion of Ukraine.