BERLIN (AP) — The German government said Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accepted a proposal by Chancellor Angela Merkel to set up a “contact group” aimed at facilitating dialogue in the Ukraine crisis.

Merkel raised the idea in a phone conversation in which she accused Putin of breaking international law with the “unacceptable Russian intervention in Crimea.” German government spokesman Georg Streiter said in a statement that Putin also accepted the idea of setting up a fact-finding mission.