KYIV – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposed a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine starting on August 23, at the beginning of the school year, and received unanimous support from Russia, Germany, France and the United States.
The proposal was made late on August 22 in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who all voiced their strong support for a lasting ceasefire to allow children in eastern Ukraine to attend school, the Kremlin and Mr. Poroshenko’s press service said after the call.
The ceasefire was announced on August 23.
Mr. Poroshenko’s office said the leaders hope the truce “will lead to sustainable improvement of the security situation to benefit schoolchildren and the entire civilian population of Donbas.”
Ambassador Kurt Volker, U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, had earlier expressed his support for the proposal in comments to the Baltic News Service as he visited Lithuania on August 22.
The ceasefire for the back-to-school season “seems like a very good idea. We would obviously fully support that and hope the sides could do that,” Mr. Volker told the news service.
Mr. Poroshenko announced his plan to call for the ceasefire at a ceremony opening a renovated musical theater in Syevyerodonetsk in the Luhansk region on August 22. He said he wanted to demonstrate Kyiv’s desire for peace.
Several ceasefire deals have been announced and fizzled since Russia-backed separatists seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which border Russia, in 2014.
The new truce came into effect on August 25 just after midnight, a week before most pupils in Ukraine return to school on September 1.
Soon thereafter, the Ukrainian military and Russia-backed separatists accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that the first breach was recorded less than two minutes into the ceasefire, when the separatists targeted the village of Talakivka in the Donetsk region with small arms and heavy machine guns.
It added that Ukraine’s armed forces “did not give in to provocations and did not open fire in response.”
Meanwhile, the separatists in Donetsk said they suffered the first casualty after the truce was established when one of their fighters was killed by the bullet of a Ukrainian sniper.
Fighting between Kyiv’s forces and the Russia-backed separatists in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014.
With reporting by RFE/RL, AP, Reuters, AFP, TASS, KUNA and Interfax.