The self-proclaimed leader of a separatist-held area of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, has announced a unilateral ceasefire in the region, beginning on Wednesday at midnight.
Advertisement
Zakharchenko, dressed in a suit instead of his usual camouflage, berated the Ukrainian government for “lack of willingness to solve the problem in a peaceful manner” in the recorded TV announcement. Steinmeier said that as the OSCE did not recognise the annexation, it would not send observers to Russian parliamentary elections planned in Crimea on September 18.
Ukraine said today (13 September) that pro-Russian insurgents had killed three of its soldiers in violation of a truce the foreign ministers of Germany and France will try to revive in Kyiv this week. “We won’t allow shelling of our territory to continue unpunished”.
Igor Plotnitsky, another rebel leader, also announced a unilateral cease-fire as well on Tuesday.
The leaders of Germany and France helped negotiate a February 2015 peace agreement that was supposed to end fighting and decide the status of the rebel-run regions by the end of previous year. But the Minsk agreements have so far failed to stop the violence. Poroshenko has previously ruled out granting full independence in eastern Ukraine, warning that disunity would only allow neighboring Russian Federation to “destroy us from within”.
The foreign ministers of France and Germany, key mediators in the Ukrainian peace process, met with Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, on Wednesday and are expected to travel to the east on Thursday.
It is the latest development in a long running dispute over the repayment of a $3bn eurobond Russian Federation brought from Ukraine as part of a $20bn bailout deal struck between Moscow and Ukraine’s then-president Victor Yanukovych at the height of the country’s civil unrest in 2013.
The conflict between Russian-backed separatist rebels and Ukrainian government troops has killed more than 9,500 people since it began in April 2014.
Advertisement
At least three government troops had been killed and 15 wounded in fighting in eastern Ukraine in the previous 24 hours, officials said.
