Ukraine military today said it could not start withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line as pro-Russian separatists were still attacking government positions.
Rebel and Ukrainian forces announced an agreement at the weekend to begin withdrawing weapons, as required by the ceasefire deal that came into effect on February 15.
But Lieutenant Colonel Anatoliy Stelmakh said there had been two artillery attacks overnight and, although this is significantly fewer than in previous days, “as long as firing on Ukrainian military positions continues, it’s not possible to talk about a pullback”.
The rebels were not expected to begin their withdrawal until after a public holiday today, the BBC reported.
The two sides have two weeks to pull artillery and tanks out of striking distance under the terms of the deal, signed in Belarusian capital Minsk and brokered by France and Germany.
The resulting ceasefire looked in danger of collapsing last week when the rebels captured the strategically important rail hub of Debaltseve.
Nearly 5,700 people have died and 1.5 million have fled since fighting erupted last April in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to the UN.
An image in last Wednesday’s Standard showed soldiers in the Russian city of Stavropol helping civilians who had arrived from Donetsk. The soldiers were Russian, not Ukrainian, as our caption mistakenly said.
