Friday, March 6, 2015

President Petro Poroshenko urges Peacekeeping Mission for Ukraine's Eastern Regions

Ukraine's president signed a decree Monday opening the way to a formal request for international peacekeepers to be stationed in eastern regions where government forces are battling Russian-backed separatists.
President Petro Poroshenko's office said the appeal for a contingent of peacekeepers will be addressed to the United Nations and the European Union. His office gave no specific details on the mission's composition or any timetable for it but Russia is strongly against the idea.
Fighting has waned substantially in eastern Ukraine in recent days as a cease-fire deal forged last month increasingly takes effect, but both sides have complained of sporadic violations.
Military spokesman Col. Andriy Lysenko said Monday that one serviceman was killed and another four were wounded over the previous day. He did not specify the circumstances of those casualties.
The U.N. human rights office has raised its toll of the fighting, saying more than 6,000 people have died since the conflict began in April.
Under the terms of the cease-fire accord, the warring sides must pull back their heavy weaponry by distances of between 50 kilometers (30 miles) and 140 kilometers (90 miles) from the front line. That drawback started last week, although progress has been uncertain.
Separatist military spokesman Eduard Basurin said Sunday that rebels have pulled back all their weaponry as stipulated in the peace agreement. That claim has yet to be confirmed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is overseeing the withdrawal process.
Lysenko accused separatists of making a show of drawing back weapons only to return them to their original front line positions at night. He said Ukrainian troops would continue their own withdrawals only if the situation did not worsen.
"But it is too early to talk about this as every day we see violations of the cease-fire, including with the use of heavy weapons that the militants ought to have withdrawn," he said.
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