Calm returns to flashpoint Ukraine town

Fighting subsided around a flashpoint Ukrainian town on Sunday following a week-long surge in violence that prompted US President Donald Trump to pledge to help bring peace to the EU’s backyard.
The Ukrainian military said in the late afternoon that no soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours for the first time since fighting over the blue-collar town of Avdiivka soared last Sunday.
A total of 27 people have died in the battered town while eight more were killed in other parts of the war zone that covers the Russian-backed eastern separatist fiefdoms of Lugansk and Donetsk.
AFP reporters on the scene said the streets of Avdiivka were quiet and no shelling could be heard from the outskirts where both sides have their big guns stationed.
Ukrainian military spokesman Sergiy Klymenko told AFP that a pause in hostilities agreed by the two sides came into effect from 8 a.m. (0600 GMT).
Yet he stressed that it was only a verbal deal and not on paper.
“We are still a long way off a complete cease-fire,” Kiev military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk added in Kiev.
Klymenko said the truce was aimed at allowing workers to repair broken power lines after many in the town of 25,000 — nearly 300 of whom have been evacuated — spent days without power or heat and only limited supplies of water.
Ukraine said the overall level of rebel shelling across the conflict zone had halved over the past day while the insurgents announced their frontline towns had not come under bombardment overnight.

Source: Arab News