Lavrov, Kerry to Meet in Paris Next Week

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US counterpart John Kerry will meet in Paris next week, a diplomatic source told Russian news agencies on Tuesday.

The announcement comes amid efforts by Western countries to maintain a September 5 ceasefire deal in Ukraine which has been systematically breached in the country's east.

"Yes there will be a meeting which will approximatively take place in Paris next week," the diplomatic source told the Itar-Tass and Ria Novosti news agencies, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A few hours earlier the US State Department's top official for European affairs Victoria Nuland spoke of a meeting with Lavrov in the near future without specifying where or when.

Kerry and Lavrov had last met on September 24 on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

In late September, Lavrov said relations with Washington needed a new "reset" and added that a bilateral dialogue was continuing but in a "very reduced and truncated form."

More than 3,300 people have been killed across Ukraine's Russian-speaking east in six months of fighting.