MOSCOW (REUTERS) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine crisis.

Television footage showed Merkel emerging from a plane and entering a car waiting in the runway, shortly before Hollande flew in.

The trip by Merkel and Hollande follows five hours of late-night talks with Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko in Kiev on Thursday.

Their initiative follows fierce fighting and territorial gains in eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists since a peace blueprint was agreed in Belarus in September.