NATO's military leaders intend to re-establish contact with their Russian counterparts, after months of tension over the crisis in Ukraine, NATO's top military commander Gen. Philip Breedlove said on Thursday. "We have talked an awful lot about how we re-establish comm (communication) and the fact that the communication with our senior military interlocutors in Russia is important," Breedlove told a news conference. He said he had spoken to General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia's armed forces, even after Russian troops moved in to Ukraine's Crimea region last year. "We are going to re-establish that, we have talked among several of us senior military leaders how we will do that ... but yes, we are going to re-establish communication with Valery (Gerasimov)," he said. On Wednesday, diplomats from Russia and Ukraine agreed on a dividing line from where both sides should pull back their heavy weapons, just hours after separatist forces deployed more arms and manpower to an emerging flashpoint in eastern Ukraine. Germany's Foreign Minister, who hosted a meeting of his counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and France, said the four parties had agreed that the demarcation line defined in the Minsk agreement of last year should form the basis for the withdrawal. Under the plan, Ukraine and the pro-Russian separatists would pull back their heavy arms 15 kilometers (9 miles) on either side of the line, though there was no agreement on a withdrawal of all troops. Earlier Wednesday, Lavrov had urged measures to contain the unfolding unrest, but said nothing about the rebels surrendering territory they acquired in violation of a peace deal concluded in September in Minsk, Belarus. Ukraine says separatist forces that are backed by Russia have overstepped agreed-upon front-line boundaries between the warring sides by 500 square kilometers (190 square miles). A fresh separatist advance is under way in an area northwest of Luhansk, the second-largest rebel-held city. The fighting is centered on two checkpoints along a strategic highway. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said one of those positions, Checkpoint 31, had been abandoned but that operations were underway to retake it. The separatist forces appear well-poised to take the upper hand, however.
LBCI/AP/REUTERS