Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize their independence.

The separatist leaders in the self-proclaimed "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk also called for cooperation with Moscow "in the field of defense" in a video message broadcast on Russian television on Monday.

In eastern Ukraine, where the Ukrainian army has been fighting pro-Russian militias since 2014, violence has increased in recent days.

State-run Russian media have repeatedly reported alleged encroachments by Ukrainian troops on Russian territory.

Putin said on Monday that consideration should be given to recognizing the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.

On Tuesday, both chambers of parliament will meet for an unscheduled session.

This happened most recently before the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had broken away from Georgia, in August 2008. Officially, the parliamentarians are meeting for a different reason, but it is assumed that the areas in eastern Ukraine will be at stake.

On Monday, Putin also convened the National Security Council for a special session.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not want to name a topic.

Peskov described the situation in the Donbass as "extremely tense".

"So far we haven't seen any signs of relaxation." International observers had recently spoken of a massive increase in violations of an existing ceasefire.

Western officials have been warning for days that Russia could create a pretext for an attack on Ukraine.

Allegedly five "saboteurs" killed

The Russian army announced on Monday that it had killed five "saboteurs" coming from Ukraine on Russian soil.

Russian news agencies, citing the army, reported that the "five people" breached the Russian border and were "eliminated".

In addition, during the morning incident in the Rostov region, two Ukrainian military vehicles tried to cross the border.

Russian news agencies had previously reported that a Russian border post had been fired on from Ukraine.

In the morning, "a grenade of an unknown type fired from Ukrainian territory completely destroyed the post of border guards in the Rostov region," the agencies reported, citing the Russian intelligence service FSB, which is also responsible for the

Shortly thereafter, the Ukrainian army announced that the information was not correct;

they did not fire a grenade at the posts.

"We cannot stop them from producing fake news - but we always emphasize that we are not shooting at civilian infrastructure or at any area in the Rostov region or whatever," said Ukrainian military spokesman Pavlo Kovalchuk.

The situation on the ground is extremely tense, and the statements made by both sides are difficult to verify independently.

Meanwhile, the West's efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict diplomatically continue.

According to the Elysée Palace in Paris, US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Putin have agreed “in principle” to a summit proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The meeting “can only take place if Russia does not invade Ukraine,” the Elysée Palace said on Monday night after Macron had previously telephoned the two heads of state.