"Some Progress" Made in Ukraine Talks

The foreign Ministries of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France said Monday that "some progress" had been achieved during the second round of talks over the Ukrainian crisis; however, it hasn't produced any immediate result.

The five-hour meeting of Foreign Ministers included Pavlo Klimkin of Ukraine, Russia's Sergey Lavrov, Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius from France.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that "a certain progress was reached" in the negotiations and the parties would "continue dialogue in the same format with the goal to reach concrete suggestions for consideration by the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine," Russia Today reports.

On the other hand, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that four-way talks on the crisis in eastern Ukraine had been difficult, but they definitely had made progress. He further informed that press that the negotiations will continue next week as well, and emphasized that the ministers are eager to use any possibility to ease the situation in Ukraine and avoid further harm to human life.

Steinmeier added that he, along with his European counterparts, would report back to their leaders so as to decide upon how to continue talks on Monday or Tuesday.

According to BBC, Ukrainian officials said that its forces had advanced into Luhansk - a city majorly held by the pro-Russian rebels - for the first time in months on Sunday.

Ukrainian Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that the national flag of Ukraine was raised over a police station which had been under rebel control for months.

The military said that a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by rebels near Luhansk; however, the pilot managed to escape.