Talks aimed at settling the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine have ended without a breakthrough. According to dpa, former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, the government's envoy to the meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group, said the participants could not agree on either a ceasefire or the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, the Interfax news agency reported. The discussions lasted three hours in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
