French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Friday President Francois Hollande underscored the need for a truce in Ukraine during a dinner he hosted for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said Friday President Francois Hollande underscored the need for a truce in Ukraine during a dinner he hosted for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"We held discussions with President Putin to tell him: in Ukraine it's virtually all-out war. How can we help to bring about a truce?" Fabius, who was at Thursday's dinner, told RTL radio.

He said Putin was told that this "was the first thing that is necessary."
Putin met both British Prime Minister David Cameron and then Hollande on a night of gastro-diplomacy in Paris.

His stop in Paris ahead of Friday's D-Day commemorations in northern France came as Kiev said it had lost control of part of its eastern border to separatists.

Fabius said Hollande had also raised the issue of Russia's gas supplies to Ukraine.

"We held very frank discussions," Fabius said, adding that Putin had admitted that he "could have a certain influence but not total influence" over events in Ukraine.

"He gave the example of the referendum which took place while he had asked for it not to be held," Fabius said, referring to the May 11 vote called by separatist activists in eastern Ukraine to split from the rest of the ex-Soviet republic.
Separatists claimed a massive victory in the two east Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Lugansk while Kiev called the balloting a farce.

"We will see what transpires in the coming hours and days but we have explained that what is unquestionable is that it is in nobody's interest that there is a major war in Ukraine," Fabius said.