Russia successfully launched a military satellite on Friday, following a recent string of failures for the country's space program.

The military satellite sent into space from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia at 1524 GMT was put into orbit as planned, state news agency TASS reported, quoting a defense ministry spokesman.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels this month are set to extend sanctions on Russia over its involvement in the fighting in Ukraine until the end of 2015, diplomats told AFP on Friday.

The sanctions, which target economic sectors such as Russia's banks and oil industry, were imposed after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Dutch counterpart Bert Koenders on Friday to discuss catching and prosecuting those who shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine last year, Moscow said.

In Moscow, they also discussed "current issues of international importance, including the situation in the Middle East and North Africa... as well as resolving the Ukraine crisis", the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United Nations on Friday urged all sides in Ukraine to fully uphold a Europe-brokered ceasefire, as the warring parties accused each other of jeopardizing the truce.

U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman warned during an emergency Security Council meeting: "We are either looking at a return to a deepening intractable conflict or a momentary upsurge in parts of the conflict zone.

Turkish authorities have detained a female Russian student as she attempted to cross into war-torn Syria, Russian authorities said Friday.

Moscow State University student Varvara Karaulova, 19, was found in the Turkish border town of Kilis after she vanished from the Russian capital, the interior ministry said in a statement. 

Legislation ending the U.S. government's bulk collection of telephone data is "a historic victory for the rights of every citizen," former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden said in a commentary Thursday.

In the opinion piece, published in several newspapers internationally including The New York Times, Snowden reflected on what he said was a profound shift in the public's awareness of mass surveillance since his infamous leaks disclosing the extent to which the U.S. government and some partners monitor electronic communications.

The U.S. government on Thursday admitted hackers accessed the personal data of at least four million current and former federal employees, in a vast cyber-attack suspected to have originated in China.

"As a result of the incident," uncovered in April, the Office of Personnel Management said it "will send notifications to approximately four million individuals."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned Thursday of the "colossal threat" of major clashes in eastern Ukraine where at least 26 people have died in renewed fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels.

Fresh clashes erupted near the rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Wednesday, in one of the worst outbreaks of violence since a European-brokered truce was agreed in February.

Russia backs moves to determine who is responsible for a wave of chlorine gas attacks in Syria that the West blames on the Damascus regime, Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday.

But it remains unclear if a U.N. Security Council resolution, as proposed by the United States, is the best way to provide answers, Vitaly Churkin told reporters.

Fighting surged in east Ukraine on Wednesday as Kiev accused pro-Russian forces of launching a "large-scale" attack in breach of a tenuous ceasefire. 

Rebels claimed that 15 separatist fighters and civilians were killed as fresh clashes flared, but denied that they had started a new assault.