Fighting raged in eastern Ukraine Wednesday, killing five people at a bus station in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, as Western leaders confirmed that they would take part in peace talks later in the day.
Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said she and French President Francois Hollande would travel to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to attend the four-way summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
European leaders have warned that there is no guarantee a deal will be reached with Moscow, which the West says is fueling a separatist rising in eastern Ukraine with troops and arms. Germany and France have rushed to mediate after a recent uptick in violence in the region, where fighting has killed at least 5,300 people since April.
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Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, and Laura Mills in Moscow contributed to this report.
