Marathon talks in Belarus yesterday ended with a ceasefire announcement in the war between Ukraine and pro-Moscow rebels, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that “big hurdles” remained.
Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from the summit in the Belarussian capital, Minsk, saying he, Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had agreed on the “main” points.
Putin said a ceasefire would take effect on Sunday and that heavy weapons would be withdrawn from frontlines of the conflict, which has already killed at least 5,300 people and driven a million people from their homes.
Photo: AFP
Hollande went further, saying there was agreement on “a comprehensive political solution.”
He added that there was “serious hope, even if all is not done.”
However, Merkel spoke only of a “glimmer of hope.”
“I have no illusions. We have no illusions,” she said, adding that “much work” remained.
The truce — meant to ease a crisis that has plunged the West and Russia into their bitterest dispute since the Cold War — was signed by the so-called “contact group.” This comprises the pro-Russian separatist leaders, Russian and Ukrainian envoys, and European mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
A previous truce signed in Minsk in September last year quickly collapsed.
The latest talks were seen as a last opportunity for European leaders to save nearly bankrupt Ukraine from ever-widening defeats at the hands of rebels said by Kiev and the West to be armed and trained by Russia.
Even as the deal was agreed, Kiev and rebel sources said fighting over the past 24 hours had killed 14 civilians and two Ukrainian soldiers.
Kiev also accused Russia of deploying another 50 tanks across the border overnight.
In rebel-held Donetsk, weary residents expressed little optimism.
“I don’t believe in it at all,” said Lyubov, 62, who would not give her last name. “Every time they sign an agreement, they say one thing and do another. I no longer trust anyone.”
“I hope that this will be a real ceasefire,” said Olena Ivachova, 30, who lives in the heavily damaged Donetsk neighborhood of Tekstilnik. “I’m so afraid that I haven’t been out in three weeks.”
Beset by war and corruption, Ukraine’s pro-Western government is struggling to enact legal and economic reforms that would help steer the former Soviet republic out of Russia’s sphere of influence and into Western institutions.
The Kiev government received a major boost yesterday with an announcement by IMF managing director Christine Lagarde of a new financial rescue plan worth US$17.5 billion.
In total, Ukraine will receive US$40 billion in assistance over four years coupled with bilateral loans from other sources, Lagarde said, helping to stabilize Kiev’s finances after 10 months of conflict in the east.
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