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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday that Russia must abide by a 2015 deal aimed at ending fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists as the Trump administration searches for ways to work cooperatively with Moscow.

The former Exxon Mobil CEO spoke after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for the first time, in the highest-level face-to-face contact between representatives from the two countries since Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and Russian-speaking separatists in Ukraine's began protests that escalated into a war, with thousands killed. A deal two years ago known as the Minsk agreement was intended to end the conflict, but skirmishes have continued.

"As we search for new common ground, we expect Russia to honor its commitments to the Minsk agreements and work to de-escalate the violence in the Ukraine," Tillerson said after talks with Lavrov.

Also Thursday, U.S. Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was set to meet with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. It was to be first meeting between the two countries' senior members of the military since Trump was sworn in.

Tillerson has taken a low-key and reserved approach in his first two weeks on the job and declined the opportunity to speak with reporters traveling with him aboard his plane to Germany. He did not respond to reporters' questions at his first three meetings in Bonn and, until Thursday, had yet to comment publicly on developments with Russia, its alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or its actions in Syria and Ukraine.

"As I made clear in my Senate confirmation hearing, the United States will consider working with Russia where we can find areas of practical cooperation that will benefit the American people," Tillerson said following the Lavrov meeting.

"Where we do not see eye to eye, the United States will stand up for the interests and values of America and her allies."

The meeting, on the sidelines of a larger foreign ministers conference in Germany, came amid turmoil inside the Trump administration over Russia and the ouster of national security adviser Michael Flynn over misleading White House officials on his contacts with Moscow.

Asked whether the chaos in Washington was a concern to Russia, Lavrov replied: "You should know we do not interfere in the domestic matters of other countries."

In his opening remarks, Lavrov said he and Tillerson had "plenty of issues to discuss" and that they would "discuss and establish the parameters of our future work."

Trump chose Tillerson for the job in part because of his business experience and relationship with Russia while he was at Exxon. His meeting with Lavrov was seen as a first test of whether that business acumen which led to great profits for the oil company and Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowing a friendship award upon him can translate into success in a high-stakes diplomatic arena.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Tillerson voiced conventional concerns about Russia's behavior and said they should be addressed by projecting a forceful and united front. Like others in the administration, he hasn't been specific about how to repair damaged ties or whether doing so might involve lifting U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia after its annexation of the Crimea region.

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US secretary of state says Russia must honor Ukraine deal - ABC News

The news reached Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko via a morning phone call from an assistant: A rocket attack damaged 11 houses on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city.

There were no casualties, but a major concern had becomea reality: The escalation of fighting elsewhere in the nationin recent weekshad reached the industrial city, a key component in southeast Ukraines struggling economy.

Weve gotten used to a peaceful life, Boychenko said duringa recentinterview at his office. I really dont want to return to the problems we had started to forget.

Ukraines nearly three-year battle against Kremlin-backed separatists in the east erupted into the worst fighting in two years in late January. Exactly why the fighting intensified recently remains unclear, though such encounters have occurred with some frequency during unrest that included Russias annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

The small city of Avdiivka, 90 miles north of Mariupol, became the epicenter of therecentviolence. The fighting quickly spread along a 300-mile line separating the Ukrainian government-controlled lands and those claimed by separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Mariupol had seen only sporadic fighting over the last two years, primarily in the regions eastern villages. But as news trickled in about the bombardment of Avdiivka, Mariupol began again hearing the deep rumble of explosions and heavy artillery fire less than 10 miles away.

The fighting halted vital shipments from Avdiivkas coal processing plantto Mariupols massive iron and steel works plants, jeopardizing production at one of the regions biggest employers.

Many localresidents said they feared the renewed violence could quash the growing sense of confidence in Mariupol after nearly two years of relative stability.

One concernin the region is that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin couldstrike a deal that would lift U.S. sanctions on Russia or force Ukraine to make painful compromises with Moscow. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has urged Western leaders to keep sanctions in place.

Sanctions are the only way to get Putin to the table, he said last week in an interview withjournalists and academics in Kiev, the capital.

Nationally, there is little faith in the Minsk agreements, a road map to peace brokered in 2014 by European leaders between Ukraine, the Kremlin and the separatist rebel leaders. Poroshenko maintains that Ukraine is committed to its obligations to the agreements.

Minsk is my plan. Putin accepted it. His signature is there, he said.

Mariupol has gone through a noticeable transformation since war erupted in eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014. Once the epitome of a run-down, Soviet industrial port city with two massive metallurgy plants puffing out pollution day and night, Mariupol in the last two years has emerged as a center of civic activism in Ukraines southeastern battlefront.

The city was the center of several violent outbreaks in spring 2014, when Ukrainian forces and supporters of the pro-Russian separatist groups fought gun battles in the downtown streets. The charred former police headquarters and city council buildings still stand as reminders. On Jan. 24, 2015, a missile attack hit an eastern region of Mariupol dense with Soviet-era concrete housing blocks, killing at least 30 people.

The previously politically passive, mostly Russian-speaking city created community groups that mobilized to gather whatever money they couldto buy medical kits, food, and flak jackets and helmets for Ukraines ill-prepared military. The fightingdisplaced 1.75 million eastern Ukrainians, but localsopened their homesand about 56,000 newcomers settled in Mariupol.

We dont call them refugees anymore, Boychenko said. They are new Mariupolites and have already become part of our city.

Once-thriving Donetsk is now occupied by rebel forces, so Mariupol, the largest city in the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, became the de facto cultural hub of the eastern industrial areaalong the Don River basin, known as the Donbas.

Displaced activists from Donetsk opened an avant-garde theater and creative space that has hosted some of the countrys big names in modern talent.

Small businesses grocery stores, small restaurants and mom-and-pop shops whose ownersfled the fightingreturned, and new cafes have opened. Ukraines most popular music group, Okean Elzy, gave a free concert in May attended by more than 30,000 people.

Weve been working all year to create a positive mood in the city, Boychenko said.

Alex Ryabchyn, a deputy in Ukraines parliamentwho was born in Mariupol, said the city is in the early stages of reinvention.

The population is starting to think of themselves as being the center of southeastern Ukraine. Thats new, said Ryabchyn,whowas an economics professor in Donetsk State University before fleeing to Kiev after the pro-Russia rebel takeover.

Mariupol faces major challenges, particularly in the economic sphere. Ukraines economy has been battered since protests ousted a Moscow-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. The war ripped apart the countrys coal mining and steel processing industry, destroying many plants and severely curtailing production in those that survived.

The aging steel plants need modernizationand the economy needs diversification to revitalize the region. Highways linking Mariupol to other cities are so bad that drivers are forced to reroute to avoid the worst sections. Train ridesfrom Kiev to Mariupol, about 500 miles,take 18 hours, and the airport cannot accept commercial flights because of its location near the front lines of fighting.

Mariupol can feel like an isolated peninsula in Ukraine, an image many hoped was changing.

You can see why [an increasein fighting] is a problem, Irina Chirkova, 24, a waitress in Mariupol, said as a series of explosionspierced the cold air. We have a lot of potential here a big port, an airport and nice beaches. But our infrastructure needs investment, and who is going to invest in us now with this war?

Sabra Ayres is a special correspondent.

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Residents in eastern Ukraine face worst fighting in years in war with Russian-backed separatists - Los Angeles Times

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaks at the ceremony commemorating the fallen Heroes of the "Heavenly Hundred" in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. The "Heavenly Hundred" is what Ukrainians in Kiev call those who died during months of anti-government protests in 2013 and 2014. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

MOSCOW (AP) Ukraine's president on Thursday pledged to resume coal supplies from separatist-controlled parts of the country after it was blocked by volunteer battalions, threatening to disrupt the country's power supply.

Fighting in Ukraine's industrial east between government troops and Russia-backed rebels has killed more than 9,800 people since April 2014. Despite the hostilities, Kiev continued to buy coal from areas controlled by separatists as power stations in Ukraine are mostly designed to run on the specific type of coal that is produced there.

Sales were suspended when Ukraine's unruly volunteer battalions and some lawmakers blocked a railroad that brings coal across the front line late last month.

President Petro Poroshenko said that the lack of coal from the east risks leaving entire towns without heating and he pledged to resume the supply.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that about nine out of 24 million tons of coal that Ukrainian power stations require every year is imported from the rebel-occupied east. He has held an emergency government session which agreed on a temporary shutdown of some parts of the electricity grid if the supply shortage gets worse.

An Associated Press investigation in 2015 detailed how billionaire Renat Akhmetov, one of Ukraine's richest men, operates factories and coal mines on both sides of the front line, powering the country's economy and pouring hundreds of millions in taxes into government coffers. His steel products, which are finished in rebel territory, are then shipped to the West where they bring in billions in revenue for Akhmetov that then indirectly props up the separatist government. His companies provide more than 300,000 jobs across Ukraine, most in the rebel-held east.

Poroshenko on Thursday mentioned the same figure when he said this is approximately how many people could lose their jobs if the economic ties between parts of the east and the rest of Ukraine are severed completely. Poroshenko painted a grim picture of what might happen if the factories and coal mines in rebel-occupied Donbass grind to a halt.

"What is better for us: for them to work in the mines, or for them to shoot at us?" Poroshenko asked in a public speech in Kiev. "We are implementing a strategy to restore the country's territorial integrity returning Donbass to Ukraine's fold and getting Ukraine back to Donbass."

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Ukraine's president vows to resume coal supply from east - Colorado Springs Gazette

KIEV Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russian hackers of targeting its power grid, financial system and other infrastructure with a new type of virus that attacks industrial processes, the latest in a series of cyber offensives against the country.

Oleksandr Tkachuk, Ukraine's security service chief of staff, said at a press conference that the attacks were orchestrated by the Russian security service with help from private software firms and criminal hackers, and looked like they were designed by the same people who created malware known as "BlackEnergy."

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) could not be reached for comment. Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations from Kiev that it has been waging a "cyber war" on Ukraine since relations between the two countries collapsed following Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of Russian-backed separatist fighting in Ukraine's Donbass region.

The allegations are the latest sign that Russia's behavior in conflict areas has not changed markedly since Donald Trump became U.S. president last month, calling for warmer relations between Washington and Moscow.

The new attacks caused some of Ukraines cyber defenders to cancel plans to attend this weeks RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, according to one Western expert familiar with the situation.

If the allegations are confirmed, that could help Ukraine further its case for the United States to help coordinate a multi-national effort to counter the threat of Russian cyber warfare.

"There is a global cyber war of Russia against (the) whole world," President Petro Poroshenko told Reuters in an interview in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Ukraine said Russia made 6,500 cyber attacks on it in November and December alone. Ukraine blamed hackers for knocking out part of Kiev's power grid in December, and for attacks on the defense and finance ministries and the State Treasury.

Tkachuk said at Wednesday's press conference that malicious software used in the campaign was designed to attack specific industrial processes. As an example, he said that the code included modules that sought to harm equipment inside the electric grid.

"Russian hackers and infobots become an important tool of the aggression against our country," Tkachuk said.

He said the attacks employed a mechanism dubbed "Telebots" to infect computers that control infrastructure.

Slovakian cyber-security firm ESET used the same name in December to identify the hacking group responsible for attacks on Ukraine's financial sector and energy industries.

ESET said it believed that Telebots had evolved from BlackEnergy, a hacking group that attacked Ukraine's energy industry starting in December 2015.

ESET researcher Cameron Camp said that the latest attack software sounded like a modest adaptation of an program his firm had published a report on in December.

Both campaigns were carefully targeted, opened back doors, sent out certain types of files to unknown masters, and downloaded tools that can wipe out those files.

Without directly attributing the attack to the Russians, Camp said "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's duck-like."

Separately on Wednesday, cyber security firm CyberX said that it had uncovered a separate espionage operation in Ukraine that had compromised more than 60 victims.

Victims of the malware included an energy ministry, a scientific research institute and a firm that designs remote monitoring systems for oil & gas pipelines, according to CyberX.

CyberX Chief Technology Officer Nir Giller said he was not sure who was behind the operation, but suspected it was conducting reconnaissance for launching further attacks.

(Writing by Matthias Williams and Jim Finkle; Additional reporting by Joseph Menn and Dustin Volz in San Francisco; Editing by Dominic Evans and Grant McCool)

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian police made a third arrest on Thursday in their hunt for the people involved in the murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right political allies hailed on Thursday a shift in U.S. support for a Palestinian state and shrugged off a call by President Donald Trump to curb Israeli settlements on occupied land.

BONN, Germany Russia does not interfere in other countries' interior affairs, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday at the start of his first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

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Ukraine charges Russia with new cyber attacks on infrastructure - Reuters

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Ukraine: Warring Parties Agree To Pull Back Heavy Weapons, Mediator Says STRATFOR Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have agreed to withdraw heavy weapons from the front lines by Feb. 20 in line with the so-called Minsk peace plan, Martin Sajdik, the lead negotiator on the Ukraine crisis for the ... Mediator Says Warring Sides In Ukraine Agree To Pull Back Heavy WeaponsRadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty all 18 news articles »

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Ukraine: Warring Parties Agree To Pull Back Heavy Weapons, Mediator Says - STRATFOR