The leaders of France and Germany spoke for more than two hours by telephone on Sunday with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko, seeking progress before a Ukraine ceasefire expires, Reuters quoted the French president's office as saying. Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "stressed the importance of further concrete progress towards the stabilisation of security on the ground, the extension of the ceasefire and the implementation of the peace plan presented by the Ukrainian authorities," Hollande's office said in a statement.