Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking during a news conference with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned yesterday that closely-watched talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko in Minsk were unlikely to deliver a breakthrough that would resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

A day after she paid a highly-symbolic visit to Kiev, Merkel reiterated that a political solution was needed, and that there was no military solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

“My visit to Kiev was preparation for such a meeting (between Putin and Poroshenko) which certainly won’t result in the breakthrough,” said Merkel in an interview with ARD television.

“But you have to talk to each other if you want to find solutions,” said Merkel, adding the situation was very fragile.

Putin and Poroshenko are due to meet in the Belarussian capital Minsk tomorrow at a meeting that will also include senior members of the European Union and the Russian-led Customs Union.

Diplomats say tomorrow’s meeting between Putin and Poroshenko may provide the best chance yet of ending a conflict that has left ties between Moscow and the West at their most toxic since the Cold War and has sparked sanctions that are hurting the Russian and European economies.

The two Presidents last met in June in a frosty encounter in Normandy, France, at commemorations to mark the World War II D-Day landings. They did not shake hands. Since then, the momentum in the conflict has tilted in Ukraine’s favour.

With strong Western backing and progress on the battlefield, Kiev is now in a much stronger position.

Putin, meanwhile, faces the stark choice of a humiliating defeat for the rebels or giving them direct help and so risking further sanctions that will inflict deeper pain on his economy.

The European Union’s chief diplomat, Catherine Ashton, will be at the meeting to help mediate. Yesterday, Ashton said the meeting provided “an opportunity we should not miss”.

Merkel, who has tried to play a role in easing the crisis, said that she would do everything in her power to help the two sides overcome differences on questions ranging from decentralisation to trading ties and gas deliveries.

“What we say, and especially I as someone who experienced how Germany could be united peacefully with the agreement of its neighbours, is that the Ukrainian people must have the opportunity to choose their path,” she said.

Merkel who was brought up in Communist East Germany, said she did not want to do anything that would hurt Russia, indeed she wanted to have good trading and diplomatic relations with Moscow.