Gloom deepens over Ukraine peace deal before Paris meeting

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - For months, as progress in implementing the Minsk peace deal for eastern Ukraine stalled, its architects, Germany and France, held out hope that with time and carefully calibrated pressure on Kiev and Moscow, the agreement could be pushed back on track.

But since a joint visit by the German and French foreign ministers to Ukraine's capital last week, a gloomier view has taken hold: that political dysfunction in Kiev has all but doomed the chances of it delivering on its own commitments under the peace agreement.