From Interfax:
A senior member of the parliament of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic on Saturday suggested that the contact group on eastern Ukraine meet on December 12 rather than on December 9 as announced earlier.
"I would like us to hold our next round of consultations in Minsk on Friday December 12," Denis Pushilin, deputy chairman of the Supreme Council, told Interfax.
Hollande said at the start of his meeting today with Putin that he hoped the meeting would help "rid ourselves of the walls that divide us." -- AP
West, Russia must stop new "walls" from coming up, Hollande tells Putin. -- AFP
French President Francois Hollande traveled to Moscow today, reportedly the first Western leader to travel there since the annexation of Crimea. But first, it appears, he spoke with Ukraine's president.
From our newsroom:
Russia's Gazprom has confirmed it has received a prepayment of $378 million from Ukraine's state energy firm Naftogaz for gas shipments in December.
Russia's Interfax news agency on December 6 quoted Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov saying the transfer had been made at 2:00 am local time.
Naftogaz said late on December 5 that it had transferred the amount.
The move paves the way for the first shipments since Moscow cut supplies in June in a dispute over prices and debts.
Russia wants Ukraine to pay for gas in advance.
According to the terms of a deal signed in October by Naftogaz and Gazprom, gas should flow from Russia to Ukraine within 48 hours from when the Russian firm receives the transfer.
Naftogaz did not say how much gas it planned to buy, but earlier the Energy Ministry said this could be about one billion cubic meters.
Cash-strapped Kyiv had delayed buying new supplies, but increasingly cold weather has forced it to draw down on severely depleted reserves.
Based on reporting by Interfax and Reuters
Barring any major developments, this concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Friday, December 5. Check back in this same space tomorrow for more continuing coverage.
Ukraine's Poroshenko Tells Army Not To Give Up Donetsk Airport
By Natalia Zinets and Maria Tsvetkova
KIEV/DONETSK, Ukraine, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The whole of Ukraine will be within reach of the "enemy" if its armed forces lose control of the international airport in the eastern city of Donetsk to separatists, President Petro Poroshenko said on Friday.
Poroshenko issued the warning after another night of intense fighting with Russian-backed rebels at the airport, part of a new spasm of violence in a conflict which has triggered the worst standoff between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
Ukrainian troops made a tactical withdrawal in the face of rebel mortar and artillery strikes then returned to their positions, the Kiev military said.
Six Ukrainian soldiers were killed in clashes with the separatists in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman said, despite a three-month ceasefire.
The latest fighting, which included fresh shelling on a district of rebel-controlled Donetsk in which a pensioner was killed, came just days before both sides were due to try to reinforce the shaky ceasefire by observing a "Day of Silence" on Dec. 9.
Kiev and its Western backers accuse Russia of sending troops across the border and arming the rebels, charges Moscow denies.
Poroshenko made his comments at a Kiev ceremony in which he awarded medals to some of the defenders who have hung doggedly on to control of the airport since May.
"I am sure that we are defending there the whole of Ukraine," he said. "If we give up Donetsk (airport), the enemy will be at Borispil or Gostomel or even in Lviv," he said.
Borispil is the name of the capital's main international airport and Gostomel is a small former military airfield outside Kiev. Lviv is Ukraine's main city in the west.
Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the separatists had suffered "big losses" in three failed attempts to break through Ukrainian positions, including at Donetsk airport.
Ukrainian and separatist leaders have pledged to observe the "Day of Silence", intended to prepare for creation of a non-militarised buffer zone, from which the two sides will withdraw artillery and other heavy military equipment.
The United Nations puts the overall death toll in the conflict at more than 4,300.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday agreeing a demarcation line between the rival sides was the crucial element that had stalled earlier truce efforts.
"We expect the ceasefire to take effect in full from Dec. 9 ... The ceasefire was announced before. It led to a considerable easing in violence but not to a full (halt of fighting)," Lavrov said during a visit to Basel, Switzerland.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, also speaking in Basel, said: "We have human losses and human suffering every day. So it's about real delivery, it's about deeds and not just commitments and words."