France to host 'Normandy' summit in push for east Ukraine peace

French President Emmanuel Macron will host the Normandy summit in Paris on Dec 9, where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss steps to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

It will be the first time the leaders have all met in more than three years, and it comes after a breakthrough at talks between Russia and Ukraine last October.

Ukrainian government forces and rebels began withdrawing from a village in the disputed Donbass region in November, helping pave the way for the so-called Normandy summit, which takes its name from a meeting of the four nations' leaders in the northwestern French region in 2014.