MUNICH, Feb. 8 - The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France agreed to meet in Belarus on Wednesday to try to broker a peace deal for Ukraine amid escalating violence there and signs of cracks in the transatlantic consensus on confronting Vladimir Putin, Reuters reported.

The four leaders held a call on Sunday, two days after Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande traveled to Moscow for talks with Putin that produced no breakthrough in the nearly year-long conflict that has claimed over 5,000 lives.

After the call, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said progress had been made and that he was hopeful the meeting in Minsk would lead to a "swift and unconditional ceasefire" in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have stepped up a military offensive in recent weeks, seizing new territory.

A Ukraine military spokesman said on Sunday that intense fighting was continuing around the rail junction town of Debaltseve, with rebel fighters making repeated attempts to storm lines defended by government troops.

At a high-level security conference in Munich over the weekend, Merkel said it was uncertain whether further negotiations would lead to a deal with Putin but argued that all opportunities for a diplomatic solution should be pursued.

Merkel flew to Washington on Sunday for talks with Obama.

But German officials say Putin has shown little appetite for compromise and they acknowledge in private that he has repeatedly broken promises in the past.

One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Russian leader might have little incentive to clinch a peace deal now, while pro-Russian rebels are making gains on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

"He can sit back and wait as the pressure steadily builds on Ukraine and its leaders," the official said.

Poroshenko made clear in Munich that any peace deal must be on the basis of a previous agreement clinched in Minsk last September.

Since that deal however, the separatists have seized large swathes of Ukrainian land, raising doubts about whether they will ever agree to pull back to the lines enshrined in the old pact. These so-called "demarcation lines", the sealing of the international border and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry are at the heart of the negotiations with Putin.

If there is no breakthrough on Wednesday, European Union leaders meeting in Brussels the following day may signal their readiness to ratchet up sanctions against Russia, including targeting new sectors of the economy, like the banking sector. (rt/ez)