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Ukraine, rebels promise cease-fire if peace plan agreement is sealed
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UKRAINIAN President Petro Poroshenko and the main pro-Russian rebel leader said they would both order cease-fires today, provided that an agreement is signed on a new peace plan to end the five month war in Ukraine’s east.
The first apparent breakthrough of its kind in the war comes after a week in which the pro-Moscow rebels scored major victories with what NATO says is the open support of thousands of Russian troops.
Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales, Poroshenko said the cease-fire would be conditional on a planned meeting going ahead in Minsk today of envoys from Ukraine, Russia and Europe’s OSCE security watchdog.
“At 1400 local time, provided the (Minsk) meeting takes place, I will call on the General Staff to set up a bilateral cease-fire and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will begin tomorrow,” Poroshenko said.
Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said in a statement that the separatists would also order a cease-fire, from one hour later, provided that Kiev’s representatives signed up to a peace plan at the Minsk meeting.
The announcements come a day after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin put forward a seven-point peace plan, which would end the fighting in Ukraine’s east while leaving rebels in control of territory.
So far there has been no sign of a halt in fighting in the east, where rebels have rapidly advanced in the past week, backed by what Kiev and NATO say is the support of thousands of Russian troops with artillery and tanks. Moscow denies its troops are there.
Poroshenko won support from Western leaders at the NATO summit.
The West has backed Kiev by imposing economic sanctions on Moscow, but has also made clear it will not fight to protect the country, where pro-Russian rebels rose up in two provinces after Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula in March.
Ukraine has previously refused to discuss any political deal with the rebels, calling them terrorists and proxies of Moscow. But with the hope evaporating of a swift victory, Poroshenko may have been convinced that it is now time to hear the Kremlin’s offer.
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