Ukraine truce being observed 'in general'

© Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko talks to military staff in Kiev February 14, 2015.

A ceasefire that came into force midnight Sunday in Eastern Ukraine is holding in most places but not all, with both sides playing the blame game. But the city of Donetsk has had its first night without shelling in months.

The spokesperson of Ukraine's Joint Staff, Vladislav Seleznev, has confirmed that all shelling of Ukrainian positions has stopped at 3 AM local time.

"The military posture is fairly stable," reported Donetsk region's police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin.

According to the Donetsk militia representative Eduard Basurin, Donbass self-defense forces 'selectively' taped the enemy batteries without a second thought and in full conformity with previous statements of Donbass leadership.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has confirmed that ceasefire in Ukraine is "generally respected".

"We can say that in whole the truce is observed, though some ceasefire agreement violations have been registered here and there," Fabius said.

The ceasefire has been substantially implemented in eastern Ukraine in the last 12 hours, with the exception of certain areas in Debaltsevo and Lugansk, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine Ertuğrul Apakan said on Sunday afternoon.

Apakan added that the OSCE monitors failed to enter Debaltsevo, and called on both sides of the conflict to enable OSCE access to all territories in eastern Ukraine. Donetsk officials have denied receiving requests from OSCE to enter the Debaltsevo area, said Denis Pushilin, the Donetsk representative at the Minsk ceasefire talks.

The number of OSCE monitors will be increased to 350, according to the OSCE spokesman for the monitoring mission in Ukraine, Michael Botsurkiv. He added that the mission will also use drones and satellite images to monitor the holding of the ceasefire.

A bad peace is better than the best of wars - this notion is fully applicable to the situation with ceasefire in Ukraine's rebellious east. As observers on the ground witnessed, when the time has come at midnight, it became unusually quiet along the frontline.

Residents of Kramatorsk feel relieved with the coming of the ceasefire, said journalist Kerstin Kronwall, who is in the city reporting for Yle. "I cannot say that optimism prevails... At least there are no sounds of shooting now," he commented.

The blissful silence, according to the rebels, lasted for less than an hour, as Ukrainian troops inflicted several mortar and artillery strikes on rebel forces guarding the perimeter of Debaltsevo mousetrap, where an estimated 5,000 Ukrainian task force is running out of munitions and ordnance while making attempts to break out.

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Debaltsevo trap

Ukrainian troops locked up in Debaltsevo reportedly shelled settlements of Yenakievo and Gorlovka, as well as the territory of Donetsk airport, no so long ago handed over to the militia forces after months of severe firefight. But the living quarters of the city of Donetsk this time remained intact.

Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) head Aleksandr Zakharchenko said on the eve of the ceasefire that the entrapment near Debaltsevo is situated on the territory fully controlled by the rebel forces. This is interpreted that Minsk agreements on separation of the warring parties do not apply to the encircled Ukrainian servicemen.

"Please pay attention to the fact that there isn't a word about Debaltsevo [entrapment] in Minsk agreements. That means that Ukraine has simply betrayed those 5,000 people in Debaltsevo trap," Zakharchenko said, stressing that no negotiations about the entrapment is currently underway with Kiev.

The blockaded Ukrainian troops have been offered to turn in their weapons and surrender, but very littler number of servicemen has followed the call due to retreat-blocking detachments of Ukrainian nationalists guarding the troops in the rear of their positions.

Commenting on the remark made by Zakharchenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said that the accords underpinning Ukraine truce must be "unconditionally observed." "All the sequences of actions have been mentioned in the package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreement. All those terms have to be observed unconditionally," Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The news about all Ukrainian troops to be let out of the entrapment when the ceasefire agreement comes into force has been labeled by Zakharchenko as groundless.

"Any attempt of the Ukrainian armed forces to unblock Debaltsevo will be regarded as violation of the Minsk agreements, such attempts will be suppressed, adversaries will be eliminated," Zakharchenko said.

Kiev authorities have been consistently denying the very existence of the Debaltsevo entrapment. Yet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has told Ukrainian Joint Staff that the peace process is under the threat of failure because of the situation at Debaltsevo.

"I've warned you on that," Poroshenko stressed.

Will ceasefire hold?

In the meantime France's TV5 Monde aired the disastrous humanitarian catastrophe the Donbass locals find themselves in. The people there trust no one and do not believe a peace with Kiev is tangible.

"They have proclaimed ceasefire many times but never respected it," a local woman told French reporters.

That was exactly the case with Ukraine's Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh, who said his radical movement rejects the Minsk peace deal and that their paramilitary units in eastern Ukraine will continue "active fighting" according to their "own plans."

After the truce came into force at 2:00 GMT, Yarosh made a statement of National Guards official website, saying "Two of mine finely armed and equipped battalions continue offensive near Debaltsevo and have serious achievements militarily."

Several hours later the statement was deleted from the website.

Screenshot from vv.gov.ua

The rebels have informed that they need all of the territory of the Donetsk region under their control, not just the area they fully control right now.

DPR's head Aleksandr Zakharchenko said that the rest of the region is regarded as "temporarily occupied" and will be liberated politically or militarily. Political way is preferable as it helps save human lives, but if politics does not succeed, "we've already drawn attention to our capability to solve issues militarily, and not once for that matter," Zakharchenko said.

Germany, Russia send humanitarian aid to E.Ukraine

In the meantime two convoys with humanitarian aid from Russia are under customs clearance right now on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Once cleared, the white trucks of Russia's Emergency Ministry will go on two routes: to Donetsk and to Lugansk, delivering food and medical supplies to citizens of the besieged cities.

Simultaneously with this, a shipment of 28 tons of medical supplies has arrived to Donetsk from Germany. The supplies were bought using donations collected in Germany by initiative of a group of German MPs and the shipment became the very first humanitarian aid delivered to Donbass from the EU.

The delivery was made through the Russian territory because Kiev failed to provide Berlin with transit authorization. Four trucks from Germany delivered medical supplies to Donetsk, Lugansk and Gorlovka.

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