The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on Thursday over the mass deportation of Georgian citizens in 2006, saying it violated a string of rights conventions.

Russia's arrest, detention and collective expulsions of several thousand Georgians sharply raised tensions between the two countries, which fought a brief war in 2008.

Ukrainian troops backed by tanks and fighter bombers suffered their first losses on Wednesday as they pressed on with a renewed offensive against pro-Kremlin insurgents that has drawn Russian ire but also vital U.S. and German support.

The return of all-out fighting in Europe's worst security crisis in nearly two decades set off a new international scramble to dampen hostilities in the strategic ex-Soviet state.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday pushed Russia to stop backing pro-Moscow insurgents in Ukraine, as the West mulled further sanctions against the government of Vladimir Putin.

In a call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Kerry "expressed strong concern about the refusal of Russian-supported separatists to take the necessary steps" to enable the extension of a shaky 10-day ceasefire.

Ukraine's new leader congratulated his troops on Tuesday with the "first victory" in their resumed campaign against separatist insurgents, announcing they had regained control of one Russian border crossing.

President Petro Poroshenko's office said government forces had seized back the Dovzgansky crossing in Lugansk -- one of 24 in the separatist province, most of which are under rebel control.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said U.S. pressure on French banks was "blackmail" linked to Paris' controversial decision to press ahead with a sensitive deal to supply Moscow with warships.

"This does not concern us directly but what they are doing to French banks right now -- this causes nothing but indignation in Europe and here," Putin told ambassadors in a key foreign policy speech.

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described the conflict in Ukraine as the culmination of Western efforts to contain Russia and sought to play Moscow's "natural partner" Europe against the United States.

In a keynote speech laying out his foreign policy priorities, Putin lambasted the U.S. drive to sideline Moscow and said Europe has become a victim of "short-sighted, ideology-driven approaches."

The European Union is preparing new sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine but no decision has been taken yet, EU diplomats told AFP on Tuesday.

Ambassadors from the 28-nation bloc met in Brussels and decided that "the preparation of sanctions will be intensified" ahead of an extraordinary meeting next Monday, said a diplomat who asked not to be named.

Two journalists from Russian television channel Ren TV were hurt by mortar fire in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, a day after one of their colleagues was shot and killed there.

Reporter Denis Kulaga and cameraman Vadim Yudin were hurt when a "mortar shell exploded next to them" in the Lugansk area not far from the Russian border, the liberal station announced on Twitter.

France said Tuesday there would be no let-up in diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Ukraine as the Kiev government announced the end of a ceasefire in the restive east of the country.

France and Germany led efforts overnight to "de-escalate" the conflict with talks held between the foreign ministers of both countries and their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

Russia urged U.N. Security Council members Monday to back a draft statement to bar crude oil sales by "terrorist groups" in Syria, including as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The text voices the council's concern at oil fields in Syria being seized by militants, and cites ISIL and al-Nusra Front.