MOSCOW — The leaders of Russia, Germany, and France have raised the alarm about a recent increase in fighting in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s office said Putin, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and President Francois Hollande of France discussed Ukraine in a telephone call earlier in the day and condemned the recent fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The conflict in Ukraine’s industrial heartland between Russian-backed separatists and government troops has killed more than 9,500 people since it began in 2014.
Despite 2015 peace accords signed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which initially helped to halt the fighting and then lower its intensity, international monitors have reported more clashes in the past weeks, some involving heavy weaponry.
Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine are parties to the Minsk accords.
The three leaders said they will meet face-to-face in early September to discuss ways to deal with the crisis, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, but did not say whether Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would be invited as well.
The Kremlin said in its statement that Putin mentioned to Hollande and Merkel what Russia refers to as foiled terrorist attacks in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Russian intelligence said earlier this month that one of its employees and a soldier were killed in separate incidents in Crimea, described as foiled terrorist attacks outside the town of Armyansk, within miles of the de-facto border between Crimea and Ukraine.
Kiev’s ‘‘penchant to such forceful actions,’’ Putin said on Tuesday, ‘‘harms the Minsk process and cooperation’’ of the four-party talks.
An Associated Press reporter in the government-controlled town of Maryinka, on the frontline with the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, heard heavy artillery throughout the night Monday and early Tuesday.
The town was shrouded in smoke Tuesday morning from multiple fires from artillery shells that landed there during the night. Local residents said hostilities never really fully stopped there but the fighting has been particularly intensive in the past couple of weeks.
‘‘It’s quiet now, and we are outside,’’ Maryinka resident Nonna said outside her home Monday evening. ‘‘But there’s fighting during daytime. Even kids don’t go outside for a walk, they’re scared.’’
During their phone call on Tuesday, Hollande, Merkel, and Putin agreed to continue their talks on the sidelines of at the Group of 20 economic summit on Sept. 4 and 5.
Ukraine maintains the killing of the servicemen never happened, while the European Union and the United States also cast doubt on the credibility of the Russian allegation.
Poroshenko put the Ukrainian military on high alert last week, saying that “we don’t rule out a full-scale Russian invasion’’ amid the spike in violence in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine accuses Russia of stoking the separatist war, while Putin has denied military involvement.
Putin said during a visit to Crimea on Friday that Ukraine “doesn’t want to, or can’t for whatever reason, fulfill’’ its commitments under the Minsk peace accords. But he said Russia does not plan to restrict its diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
There’s a need to “further de-escalate the situation, including the withdrawal of forces and the establishment of demilitarized zones’’ in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said in its statement.
Hollande is concerned about the growing number of cease-fire violations reported in eastern Ukraine, his office said.
Poroshenko praised his military’s readiness while visiting troops Tuesday, saying the army is better trained and equipped than when fighting first broke out. While diplomacy is needed, efforts to resolve the conflict can’t be effective without military strength, Poroshenko said.
The European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Russia for annexing Crimea and for its role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Merkel said last week that she would be willing to lift the sanctions if the Minsk accord were implemented.
