Slideshow ( 3 images )

KIEV (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Germany would push for an extension of Western sanctions against Russia in December because Moscow had failed to fully implement a Ukraine peace deal brokered in Minsk in 2015.

“The Minsk agreement is not being fulfilled and we’re only making inching progress if at all and sometimes we’re going backwards,” Merkel said during a visit to Kiev, where she met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

“So based on the situation we have today, Germany will push for an extension of the sanctions in December too,” she said, adding that among the violations of the Minsk peace deal were elections planned for Nov. 11 in areas controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.