Ukraine president spoke to Germany's Merkel to prepare for summit on eastern Ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to prepare for a four-way summit in Paris next month, Zelenskiy's office said in a statement on Thursday.

The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany meet in the so-called "Normandy" format on Dec. 9, to help end a conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people.