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EU leaders have asked their foreign ministers to consider imposing further sanctions on Russia in response to the continued fighting in Ukraine.

5,000 people have been killed in fighting since the rebels seized swathes of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions last April, according to UN estimates. More than a million people have been displaced.

Ukraine.

searching for new measures that will have more impact than the economic sanctions imposed so far, without risking major damage to their own industries or a military escalation that could spiral out of control.

new package of sanctions targeting Russia’s banking, energy and defense sectors, but expressed skepticism that the measures would force Moscow to reverse course.

provide arms and more intelligence to Ukraine’s beleaguered military.

To be sure, analysts doubt that France would risk an international crisis by pulling the plug on a long-awaited deal. But it has certainly positioned itself as the Western country pushing hardest to satisfy the concerns of Iran's regional antagonists, Israel and the Gulf Arab nations, which oppose a deal that leaves Tehran in possession of the nuclear infrastructure that could, in theory, allow it to build a bomb. (To do so, it would have to break out of an international agreement and circumvent the stringent monitoring regime currently in place.)

hey also want the U.N. Security Council to oversee Iran's nuclear program rather than the International Atomic Energy Agency, as is currently the case, and argue that sanctions should be repealed only gradually once Western powers are satisfied by Iran's compliance.

pro-Russian rebels

Talks have foundered on Russia’s refusal to halt or even acknowledge what Ukraine and its Western supporters say is a steady flow of fighters and military hardware into Ukraine from Russia.

Lifted by battlefield gains in recent weeks, the mood in Kiev was bolstered further on Tuesday by news that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had accepted an invitation from Mr. Poroshenko to travel to Kiev this weekend, and that the European Union was considering a new round of economic assistance.

The move contravenes the International Health Regulations which stipulate that in infectious disease outbreaks, countries should not impose trade or travel sanctions against affected countries beyond what the WHO has recommended.