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Foreign Ministers of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin, France Jean-Marc Ayrault, Russia Sergey Lavrov and Germany Sigmar Gabriel pose for a photograph during the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany on Feb. 18, 2017. Sven Hopp / Reuters

The agreement aimed to end fighting in the disputed area of Ukraine.

"The Minsk agreement is the only channel we have to bring a solution to this conflict," Merkel said. "The Minsk agreement started on the assumption that there was a road map, but when it was enacted there was no continuous ceasefire."

NATO allies laid the consequences of the conflicts at the feet of Russia, which has claimed no responsibility for the separatist activities, although it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014. Most nations, including European Union members and the United States, do not recognize Crimea as a part of the Russian state.

A Ukrainian hacker group named Cyber Hunta also

Since then, European nations have grown increasingly alarmed by Russia's use of force along its western border.

"We have seen a more assertive Russia," NATO Secretary General Jens Soltenberg told CNBC at the Munich Security Conference. "We have seen a Russia that has invested heavily in new military capabilities, which has tripled spending on defense over the last years, and most importantly which has been willing to use military force against neighbors in Georgia and Ukraine. And that's exactly why NATO is responding in a measured defensive way."

Stoltenberg said NATO will invest in defense upgrades for any new conflicts, whether that's on the ground or in cyberspace.

"We have to be agile. We have to be prepared for the unforeseen," he added. "And that's exactly what we are doing when we are increasing the readiness of our forces, when we are increasing the presence of our forces in the eastern part of the alliance and we are."

President Donald Trump has flip-flopped on his support for NATO. After the November election, he told the Times of London that the 28-state alliance is obsolete, but then earlier this month said "we strongly support NATO." Meanwhile, he has refused to criticize Russia, recently stating that the United States is

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Russia Announces Another Ceasefire Deal With Ukraine Amid Tensions With West - NBCNews.com

Ukrainians are holding several days of events to mark the third anniversary of the end of what they call the Revolution of Dignity.

A hundred people, now known as the Heavenly Hundred, were shot dead by riot police in February 2014 during protests on Independence Square locally known as the Maidan in central Kyiv.

Local resident Daryna Kulchytska was among those gathered in Independence Square on Saturday (February 18, 2017).

I dont want people to forget what it was like, how people stood up and wanted to change something, how people were ready to give everything, even their lives, for the sake of our future, she told reporters.

The square in the capital has become symbolic of a shift that turned Ukraine away from Russia and towards Europe.

Serviceman Yuriy Myhalevych reflected on the events of 2014.

People became different, compared to how they used to be. People felt that they could change something in this country. But unfortunately, there have not been enough changes over the past three years.

The Maidan movement began as an outcry against the-then President Viktor Yanukovychs rejection of a trade deal with the European Union.

Following the deadly events in Kyiv, the Kremlin-backed leader and his inner circle fled to Russia.

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Ukraine reflects on deadly 'Revolution of Dignity' - euronews

MUNICH -- A new cease-fire has been agreed to for eastern Ukraine, but some Russia-backed separatists could not say if they would respect the fighting halt, and a Ukrainian leader said he was not pleased with the results of a four-party meeting in Munich.

The cease-fire was announced on February 18 by Russia and was brokered together with the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Germany, and France after talks at the Munich Security Conference.

The cease-fire is scheduled to go into effect on February 20.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the agreement a "positive" development, but he also acknowledged the lack of "major progress" at the meeting.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters the aim was to do what has long been agreed but never implemented: To withdraw the heavy weapons from the region, to secure them, and enable the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors to control where they are kept."

Russian-backed separatists on the ground would not confirm they were planning to respect the cease-fire.

Some of them said it was not feasible for it to come into force so soon.

"There has been artillery fire all day," Eduard Basurin, a senior separatist, told AFP on February 18.

"What truce are they talking about? I don't see the point in declaring a truce."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin confirmed the cease-fire agreement but warned it must become more than a "political slogan."

He told reporters he was "not at all" pleased with the meeting.

"This has to be the real situation -- and if that's not the case, we will have to have fresh negotiations," he told Ukrainian reporters in Munich.

He added that no "powerful results" where achieved at the Munich meeting of the so-called Normandy Format, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France.

Russia-backed separatists control areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraines east nearly three years after the start of their war against Kyivs forces that has killed more than 9,750.

Fighting has intensified this month, resulting in the deaths of about 30 people.

Russia also annexed Ukraine's Black Sea region of Crimea in 2014.

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New Cease-Fire Agreed For Ukraine, But Tensions Still High - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Canada's military mission to Ukraine expires in March. For several reasons, it shouldn't be renewed.

First, the present Ukrainian government, installed in a coup orchestrated by Washington, isn't worthy of our support. According to the BBC, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted that the U.S. spent $5 billion over a number of years to instigate regime change in Ukraine. (1) She overthrew the democratically-elected Yanukovich government in 2014 which had less than one year remaining in its term of office and was trying to deal with competing pressures to take a financial bailout from either Russia, on the one hand, or the European Union, on the other. (2) On Feb. 21, 2014, Yanukovich secured an agreement with European Union officials on EU economic assistance, sharing of power in Ukraine, and moving up Ukrainian elections. (3) The agreement was not good enough for U.S. Senator John McCain and other key Democratic U.S. policy-makers. After violent street protests, the U.S. installed a pro-Western junta, headed by billionaire Poroshenko. According to the CBC, the Harper government allowed the Canadian embassy in Kyiv to shelter the violent street protesters for one week and one embassy staffer to use an embassy vehicle (later burned) to take part in the protests. (4) In other words, Canadian taxpayers supported U.S. regime-change in Ukraine.

Second, the agents of regime change recruited by Nuland were none other than gangs of thugs from several fascist parties, remnants of the very same Ukrainian fascists allied to Hitler in the Second World War. They fought soldiers and police in the main squares of Kyiv and other cities. Poroshenko's coup government has the dubious distinction of being the only government in Europe with fascists in cabinet, several holding key security posts. Canadian veterans might be surprised to learn that the Trudeau government is considering renewing Canada's military mission to a country with the same fascists in government that they fought in the Second World War.

Third, the Ukrainian junta immediately implemented divisive policies, such as banning the use of the Russian language and some of the country's most popular political parties. It seems logical that Crimea would have been less likely to have voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, and eastern Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine would have been much more hesitant to seek independence if a more moderate and tolerant government took office following constitutional procedures. War and economic decline could have been avoided as well. Ukraine, a former Soviet republic (and a province of Czarist Russia for the previous 200 years) could have sought peaceful relations and constructive economic engagement with both East and West and particularly the booming economic "silk road" trade deals with China. Instead, seeking EU and NATO membership, while implementing draconian austerity policies, have only brought Ukraine to the point of economic and social collapse.

A fourth reason is the reaction of the Ukrainian government to the brutal Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014. On that day, over 40 peaceful anti-government protesters were killed and some 200 injured when pro-government thugs set fire to the Trade Union House in which they had taken shelter. This incident has not been properly investigated and no culprits arrested or punished.

Finally, contrary to the promises made to the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, NATO expansion continued to the east, along with a continuing military buildup, missile installations, and war games right up to Russia's borders. It's completely understandable why Russians feel encircled by NATO, especially now with the possibility of Ukrainian membership. We should remember that Russia was invaded twice in the 20th century from the West, costing tens of millions of Russian lives and huge devastation. A major war, possibly a third world war, could develop from aggressive NATO expansion along the Russian frontier. Placing Canadian soldiers there makes no sense at all.

It's time that the Trudeau government broke with aggressive Harper-era policies and dealt fairly and diplomatically with the Russian Federation. For this reason, it would be far wiser for the Trudeau government not to extend the military mission to Ukraine and to pull its troops and equipment out of all the frontier states with Russia. Indeed, Canadians would benefit from cutting ties with NATO altogether and pursuing instead a peaceful, humane, and independent foreign policy.

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Canada should not renew mission to Ukraine - Hamilton Spectator

President Vladimir Putin's decree legalizing some documents issued by authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk, in the territory of Russia, does not signal any change in Moscow's stance on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia's Foreign Minister has said.

On Saturday, President Putin signed a decree that will immediately recognize documents issued by authorities in the troubled Donbass region in Ukraine.

Representatives of the Normandy Four did not discuss Moscow's decision during a meeting on the sidelines of the security conference in Munich, Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Germany.

"I don't think that anyone sees any change in [Moscow's] position" towards the Donbass region, the minister said.

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IDs and other documents, such as birth, death and marriage certificates, education diplomas and car license plates issued for Ukrainian citizens and persons without citizenship in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, will be "temporarily" regarded as legal in Russia "based on the norms of international humanitarian law," Putin's decree stated.

"It will allow people from Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk to legally travel to Russia and use its railway and aviation services," Lavrov explained.

Lavrov also confirmed that the order will be in place until the Minsk Agreements aimed at settling the conflict is implemented in Ukraine, as stipulated in the decree.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko slammed the decision, calling it "another proof of Russian occupation." After having spoken with the US Vice President Mike Pence on the fringes of the Munich conference, the Ukrainian leader accused Moscow of "violating international law" with its latest decree.

Kiev "vigorously condemns" and does not recognize the Russian decree, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Having accused Russia of "violating Ukraine's territorial integrity," the ministry claimed the decision on the documents was a "de facto recognition of illegal authorities in Donbass."

READ MORE: Russian troops in E. Ukraine no obstacle for local election German ambassador

Kiev and the authorities of the self-proclaimed Lugansk and Donetsk people's republics signed a peace agreement in Minsk almost two years ago.

The document is aimed at securing a full ceasefire in the region, while also providing for constitutional reforms that would give the region greater autonomy and special status.

However, Kiev has so far failed to deal with the political changes, instead blaming Moscow for the unresolved conflict. Russia utterly fails to understand the tendency in the West to lay responsibility for the settlement of the Ukraine crisis exclusively on Moscow, Lavrov said earlier in Munich.

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Moscow's position on E. Ukrainian regions seeking autonomy hasn't changed Lavrov - RT