Berlin is considering sending soldiers to Ukraine in an operation to protect and assist monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE), according to media reports on Saturday.

The Reuters news agency reported a government source as saying that German armed forces were preparing to supply troops and equipment, should they be given the political go-ahead to deploy.

The spokesman said the exact number was not yet foreseeable, although the German mass-circulation newspaper Bild said 200 troops were to be sent. That number included some 50 paratroopers stationed in the German state of Lower Saxony, who are currently getting ready for deployment.

No peacekeeping role

Bild said the armed troops would play no part in keeping the two sides apart, but would be there purely to protect the observers. Some 150 of the troops would be involved in monitoring the buffer zone with drones.

The planned mission follows a Franco-German fact-finding mission which found that armed protection of the monitors was indispensable in allowing them to fulfill their role.

"For the moment, it consists only of exploratory discussions," a spokesman for the German foreign ministry was quoted as saying, adding that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had discussed the topic with French counterparts in Paris on Friday.

The monitors would be monitoring a 30-kilometer buffer zone between Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian rebels. The zone, inside which no heavy artillery are to be deployed, stretches from the border city of Luhansk to the port city of Mariupol.

Meanwhile, news magazine Spiegel reported that Germany was sending an aid convoy of more than 100 goods trucks from 17 German cities to Ukraine. The vehicles, carrying some 10 million euros ($12.5 million) worth of aid, including building materials, heaters, blankets and camp beds were said to already be on the way on Saturday.

Fighting goes on at airport

The ceasefire that took effect on September 5 has not held entirely, and the main airport of Donetsk has been the subject of protracted fighting over the past 24 hours.

Twelve separatist rebels involved in an assault on the airport were killed between Friday and Saturday, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported. The agency cited the National Security Council in Kyiv, adding that two government soldiers had been killed.

While the government says it remains in control of the facility, rebels say they have seized most of it, with government forces confined to underground areas of the main building.

rc/nm (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)