MOSCOW — A peace agreement for the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that has never quite ended is back in the spotlight amid a Russian military buildup near the country’s borders and rising tensions about whether Moscow will invade.
Top officials from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are meeting Thursday in Berlin to discuss ways of implementing the deal that was signed in Belarusian capital Minsk in 2015.
Here is a look at the document’s key points and the contested issues regarding its implementation:
Russia responded to the February 2014 ouster in Kyiv of a Kremlin-friendly president by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and backing a separatist insurgency in the country’s mostly Russian-speaking eastern industrial region known as the Donbas.
Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions engaged in ferocious and devastating battles with the rebels involving heavy artillery, armor and combat aircraft.
Ukraine and the West accused Russia of backing separatists with troops and weapons. Moscow rejected the accusations, saying that any Russians who fought in the east were volunteers.
