BERLIN, Aug. 28 — The leaders of Germany and France said Monday that despite renewed efforts to bring about a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, the situation “has not significantly improved,” The Associated Press reported.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron said in a joint statement that despite agreeing in a conference call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to support a new cease-fire attempt, there are still “countless violations,” including with heavy weapons.

Merkel and Macron “strongly urge” Putin and Poroshenko “to stick to their commitments completely, to support the cease-fire publicly and clearly and to ensure that the necessary instructions are relayed to the military and forces on the ground.”

Forces fighting in eastern Ukraine have committed to a ceasefire before the start of the new school year, OSCE representative Ambassador Martin Sajdik said Thursday.

Shelling has previously marred the September 1 return to school for children - an occasion that is widely celebrated in Ukraine.

However, past ceasefires have failed to bring about a prevailing peace.

The OSCE said that the group representing Ukraine, Russia and its own monitors in the conflict-torn Donbass region "reiterate their full commitment to permanent ceasefire on the occasion of the beginning of the school year, from midnight on August 25, 2017".

It followed a phone call between the "Normandy Four" - Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany - late on Tuesday where leaders "decisively" supported such a move, said the Kremlin in a statement.

"The leaders expressed their hope that this truce will lead to a constantly improving situation in terms of safety for schoolchildren and all the civilians of the Donbass," it said.

But violence has frequently marred previous declared ceasefires.

In 2014, four people died when a shell landed in a playground in Donetsk as new pupils arrived carrying flowers.

A count by the AFP news agency, 34 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in clashes with pro-Russian rebels since a truce was agreed on June 24 in eastern Ukraine.

The UN says more than 10,000 people have died since the eastern Ukraine conflict erupted in April 2014, soon after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The fighting has displaced more than 1.6 million people.

A ceasefire was agreed in Minsk in February 2015, but its terms are far from being fulfilled. (ap/ez)