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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said mounting tensions in eastern Ukraine raised the risk of a major military confrontation.

Speaking after a day of shuttle diplomacy that took him to Moscow and Kiev, Steinmeier said yesterday he used his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for an exchange of views, which seriously differ on Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.S. and the European Union had repeatedly torpedoed peace efforts in Ukraine.

We have to keep working to defuse the conflict with the possibilities at our disposal, Steinmeier said in Berlin.

Russia has been trading blame with Ukraine and its allies for a conflict thats killed more than 4,100 people. The crisis has intensified since the pro-Russian rebels in two breakaway regions held Nov. 2 elections that the government in Kiev condemned as illegitimate. Ukraine, the EU and the U.S. accuse Putin of supporting separatists. Russia denies involvement.

Lavrov faulted efforts by some countries to increase their security at the expense of others after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a stance he said contributed to the conflict in Ukraine.

The reckless, nonstop expansion of NATO is a mistake that undermines stability in Europe, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow yesterday.

At the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel blamed Putin, saying the Russian leader just doesnt accept a world order as it is.

Hes challenging a world order that has been pretty important the last few years as weve come through some significant events, beginning with the implosion of the Soviet Union, Hagel said in an excerpt from an interview for the Charlie Rose show on PBS, which is rebroadcast on Bloomberg Television. And I think hes going to continue to challenge us in the West in a lot of areas.

In Ukraine, fighting continued between militants and government forces. Two Ukrainian troops were killed and 13 wounded in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry in Kiev said on Facebook. Rebels violated the cease-fire 43 times, it said.

Russia has a choice: it can either be part of a peaceful solution or it can continue on the path toward isolation, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday in an interview with Estonian television. We should continue to try to find a peaceful way out of the conflict.

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Germany Calls for Ukraine Peace Efforts as Tensions Mount