Berlin will send over 500 troops to Lithuania for military exercises this year to underscore its NATO commitments
amid tensions with Russia, the Baltic state's defence ministry said on Tuesday.
On a trip to Washington to meet his American counterpart John Kerry, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the West remained determined to bring about peace in Ukraine.
US President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders confirmed on Tuesday that sanctions against Russia would not be lifted until ceasefire conditions in Ukraine were met.
President Barack Obama will hold a secure video conference with European leaders to discuss the crisis in Ukraine on Tuesday, as Russia faces possible further sanctions for its role in the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to want peace in Ukraine in an interview on Monday, hours before state-owned Gazprom threatened to cut off gas supplies to the country - hitting EU countries too - if it didn't pay outstanding bills immediately.
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the "Minsk II" ceasefire deal in Ukraine to be "fully respected" after meeting in Paris on Friday.
Update: Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Russian president Vladimir Putin, French president Francois Hollande and Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko on Thursday, in a bid to revive a shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
The German government said on Wednesday that pro-Russian rebels' advance into the eastern Ukrainian city of Debaltseve was a serious breach of ceasefire terms agreed last week in Minsk.
Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Petro Poroschenko of Ukraine on Monday evening, agreeing on how observers could be used to maintain the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
US European Command announced that a wing of specialized anti-tank aircraft would be sent to Germany, as tensions mount in eastern Europe over the Ukraine crisis.
UPDATE: Chancellor Merkel, along with the Presidents of France, Russia and Ukraine, issued a statement confirming that a ceasefire agreement for eastern Ukraine had been reached in Minsk.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande of France meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk on Wednesday to try and put an end to the Ukraine crisis. The Local looks at just what the stakes are at the negotiating table.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said that abandoning the principle of territorial integrity at the heart of the Ukraine crisis posed a threat to the "peaceful order of Europe" during a visit to the US on Monday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that she and French President Francois Hollande's initiative for conflict-wracked Ukraine was aimed at defending European peace".
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said a new peace plan proposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French leader Francois Hollande, which will be presented to Moscow on Friday, has raised hopes for an end to the fighting with Kiev's pro-Russian rebels.
French President Francois Hollande said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would visit Kiev later Thursday, before heading to Moscow, in a fresh push to find a solution to the raging conflict in eastern Ukraine.
White House advisor Ben Rhodes told CNN on Monday night that the US has no plans to deliver weapons to Ukraine “in the near future”, while Chancellor Angela Merkel is the “most important partner” in the crisis.
Foreign policy think-tank the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) gave Germany top marks in its annual check-up of EU member states released on Thursday.
More than 25 years after the Berlin Wall's fall, Russian lawmakers are mulling a proposal to condemn West Germany's 1990 "annexation" of East Germany as Moscow's answer to Western denunciation of its seizure of Crimea.
Germany would be prepared to negotiate a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Russia as a way out of the deadlocked Ukraine conflict, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov and Pavel Klimkin, agreed at a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday evening that heavy weapons would be withdrawn from front lines in eastern Ukraine .
The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France ended a meeting Monday without being able to set a date for a hoped-for peace summit on ending the Ukrainian conflict.
