US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has said Russia and Ukraine could solve their conflict without the beleaguered Minsk peace plan, in comments that suggest Washington may be preparing to intensify its own efforts to end more than three years of fighting.
The Minsk deal of February 2015 was brokered by Germany and France and signed by representatives of Kyiv, Moscow and Russian-backed separatists from eastern Ukraine, but it has failed to halt a conflict that has killed 10,000 people and displaced 1.5 million.