MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Russia would decide later on Monday whether or not to recognise two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.

He made the remark at the end of a televised meeting of his Security Council in which a series of officials spoke of the deteriorating situation in the two self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine.

Russian-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian government forces in the region since 2014, in a conflict that Kyiv says has cost around 15,000 lives.

  - Reuters