You're reading: Cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk (UPDATES)

Ukraine, Russia and Russian-backed separatists on Sept. 5 agreed on a ceasefire effective from 6 p.m. Kyiv time, said Heidi Tagliavini, OSCE representative in the trilateral negotiation group. She said that the protocol signed by all sides contains 12 points, but the ceasefire agreement was "the most important one."

The contact group also discussed the withdrawal of military
hardware, release of captives and humanitarian aid delivery, she said.

The deal comes after an offensive by separatists and
Russian regular troops in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, with Ukraine suffering
heavy losses. The first round of the negotiations was held on Sept. 1 but
yielded no results.

The Donetsk People’s Republic confirmed in its official Twitter account that the deal had been signed.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered the Chief of the General Staff to cease fire starting from 6 p.m., a statement on his website said. 

“The highest value is human life. We must do everything possible and impossible to terminate bloodshed and put an end to people’s suffering,” he said. He added that he had “taken into account the call for a ceasefire by Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed to the heads of illegal armed groups in Donbass and the signature of the protocol at the meeting of the trilateral contact group.”

Poroshenko instructed Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, together with the OSCE, to ensure there is international monitoring of the ceasefire’s implementation in the country’s east, according to the president’s press service.

The president also unveiled his 14-point peace plan at a
NATO summit in Wales on Sept. 5. It was not clear whether the plan coincided with
the ceasefire agreement in any way.

Poroshenko’s 14 points include security guarantees for all participants
of negotiations, an amnesty for separatists who lay down their arms, releasing
prisoners, creating a 10 kilometer buffer zone on the Russian-Ukrainian border,
withdrawal of separatist forces, creating a corridor for withdrawal of Russian
mercenaries from Ukrainian territory and disarming separatists.

Under the plan, separatists should vacate the
buildings they have seized, while local authorities should resume their work,
and Ukrainian television channels should resume broadcasts in the Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts. The plan also envisages decentralization of power, protecting
the Russian language, giving representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
a say in the choice of their governors, snap local and parliamentary elections,
and a program to create jobs in eastern Ukraine.

High-ranking
representatives of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, National Security and Defense
Council and presidential administration did not have a copy of the 12-point ceasefire
plan within two hours after it was signed and only knew its content in general terms.

Andrei Lysenko,
a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, said that Ukrainian
troops would not be redeployed anywhere after the ceasefire deal was reached. A source close to the talks told Reuters that armed forces on both sides were to remain in their current positions, under the deal.

Lysenko also said that the Ukrainian army was ready to exchange prisoners with
separatists starting from Sept. 6.

Reacting to the deal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the NATO
summit in Wales that the E.U. could suspend further sanctions thanks to the ceasefire. She
added that, to implement the ceasefire, Russia should withdraw its troops from
Ukraine.

However, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the
sanctions would be introduced regardless of the ceasefire deal.

Despite the ceasefire deal, three explosions were
heard north of Donetsk minutes after 6 p.m., Reuters reported. But two unidentified rebel fighters told
Reuters they had received an order for a ceasefire.

The agreement was reached during negotiations in Minsk.

The participants of the talks included Tagliavini; former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and Mikhail Zurabov, Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine. Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic; Andrei Purgin, first deputy prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and Igor Plotnitsky, president of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic, also took part in the negotiations.

Ukrainians reacted with skepticism to the agreement even before its details started to come out.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, said that Ukraine needs “three basic points” for the peace agreements to work.

“The first thing is to cease fire. The second one is withdrawal of the Russian army, Russian mobsters and terrorists. The third one is to restore control over the border,” Yatsenyuk said.

He went on to present a new government concept for improvements of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which is called “The Wall.” Large stretches of that border are not even officially marked, and have been out of Ukraine’s control for months.

Ukrainian
political analyst Vitaly Bala was also skeptical about the deal.

“This is
the first step towards legitimizing (the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk
People’s Republic),” he said by phone.

Bala also
said there was no guarantee that Russian President Vladimir Putin would withdraw Russian troops from
eastern Ukraine. He added that the ceasefire could be violated by Putin at any
time.

Semen
Semenchenko, commander of the National Guard’s Donbass battalion, urged Ukrainians not to complain that the war had been lost because of the ceasefire deal.

“Instead
of reading another complaint on Facebook – ‘disaster, everything has been lost!’
– join a hunter association, patriotic group, battalion, guerilla unit or the
army,” he wrote on Facebook. “My friends, this is a long-term game, and we are its
participants. Don’t let yourselves be turned into spectators, and everything
will be alright.”