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Truce holds as Ukrainian rivals pull back artillery
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BOTH government troops and pro-Russian rebels have begun withdrawing heavy artillery in the east of the country, Ukrainian officials said yesterday, a significant step toward implementing an effective cease-fire in the region.
Colonel Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Kiev’s forces had started withdrawing from frontline positions. He said the rebels had also begun their withdrawal of heavy artillery, although it was “not as massive as we expected.”
“We are seeing a trend that (the rebels) are reducing their use of heavy armed weaponry,” Lysenko said in Kiev. He said neither Kiev nor the rebels had completed their withdrawals.
A cease-fire imposed on September 5 has been riddled by violations from the start, adding civilian casualties to the estimated 3,000 people who have been killed since the conflict began in April.
Yesterday, smoke rose over a neighborhood in the north of the rebel-held city of Donetsk, where fighting in recent weeks centered on a government-held airport has caught many residential areas in the crossfire. He said two servicemen had been killed in the past day.
Last week, an agreement was signed to further the peace process, calling for both sides to halt advances and pull back heavy artillery, creating a buffer zone between them.
The deal was reached in the Belarus capital, Minsk, on Saturday by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the Moscow-backed rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Under the agreement, each party must pull back artillery of 100 millimeters or larger at least 15 kilometers, setting up a buffer zone that would be 30 kilometers wide.
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