BERLIN: Germany and France have formally offered drones to monitor Ukraine’s border with Russia in a bid to halt the flow of fighters and weapons to pro-Moscow separatists, Berlin said Friday.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Pavel Klimkin that the proposal had been made to the regional Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is monitoring the conflict.

“We are now in discussions with the OSCE to which this formal offer has been made,” said ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer.

Clarification was still needed on legal issues which would arise if the drones were accompanied by teams of armed military personnelm, he said.

Klimkin hailed the offer from Paris and Berlin, first announced five days earlier, as “a very important contribution to the implementation of the cease-fire.”

Two Austrian unarmed aerial vehicles cleared Ukraine customs Monday to form part of the OSCE drone contingent to be deployed along the Russian border and across the war zone.

NATO believes that Russia has withdrawn a “significant” number of the special forces it allegedly snuck into eastern Ukraine to help insurgents set up their own state.

Moscow denies involvement and rejects trying to seize its neighbor’s most economically important industrial region in retaliation for the February ouster of a Russian-backed president.

Governor of war-torn Donetsk sacked

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Friday fired a prominent business baron as governor of the war-torn eastern region of Donetsk and appointed a former troop commander in his place.

Sergiy Taruta was one of several pro-Western tycoons whom the interim authorities in Kiev put in charge of restless Russian-speaking regions shortly after their February ouster of a Kremlin-backed president.

Poroshenko’s office said Taruta has been replaced by former Interior Ministry troop commander Oleksandr Kykhtenko.

Analysts said the former general’s appointment means Poroshenko will now be more focused on security issues rather than political negotiations with insurgency leaders and the Kremlin.

Taruta’s authority was challenged in April by separatist guerrillas who seized his Donetsk seat of power and proclaimed independence and allegiance to Russia.

The 59-year-old oil and metals magnate — valued at $600 million (475 million euros) by Forbes magazine last year — rejected the rebels’ authority and tried repeatedly to mediate an end to the conflict.

But he reportedly angered Poroshenko for criticizing the president’s decision to give separatist-run swathes of the east limited autonomy in exchange for their agreement to halt fire and stay part of Ukraine.