Russia and Ukraine said they had failed to reach any breakthrough in a day of talks with French and German officials aimed at ending an eight-year separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The lack of progress marked a setback for efforts to defuse the wider Ukraine crisis in which Russia has massed more than 100,000 soldiers near Ukraine's borders, raising fears of a war.

Russian envoy Dmitry Kozak told a late-night briefing after Thursday's talks in Berlin that...