Ukraine, pro-Russia rebels begin Donetsk arms withdrawal

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian insurgents said Tuesday they had begun withdrawing tanks and smaller weapons from the frontline splitting the devastated Donetsk region in the ex-Soviet state's eastern war zone.

The pullback follows similar arms movements in the smaller separatist Lugansk province and falls in line with the terms of a new truce agreement struck by the warring sides on September 1.

The de-escalation -- if it holds -- would mark an important step in finally halting an 18-month conflict that has killed more than 8,000 people and plunged Russia's relations with the United States and Europe to a post-Cold War low.

It would also provide an important boost to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande's repeated efforts to find a solution to Europe's deadliest conflict since the 1990s Balkans wars.

"The withdrawal has already started," Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said in a statement.

"At this very moment, we are withdrawing from around Debaltseve."

The militias seized the strategic village in a daring February offensive that left Ukrainian troops surrounded and forced to beat a humiliating retreat.

The shattered and nearly empty industrial village that was once home to about 25,000 people remains under rebel control.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic's deputy forces chief Eduard Basurin told AFP by telephone that the "pullback has begun with Debaltseve."

Debaltseve controls transport links between the two separatist regions and had been fiercely defended by Ukrainian troops throughout the war.

Kiev's Debaltseve debacle weighed heavily on Ukraine's pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko -- already accused of making grand concessions to Moscow at talks attended by Merkel and Hollande in the Belarussian capital Minsk only days before.

The February Minsk deal required both sides to immediately pull back their heavy weapons from the 500-kilometre (300-mile) front -- a withdrawal that was never fully enforced.

But the September 1 deal and a new four-way summit that Hollande hosted in Paris on October 2 has helped to dramatically reduce daily bloodshed and introduce relative calm to much of the Russian-speaking region.

Those talks also prompted Putin to pile enough pressure on the insurgency's leaders to push back their planned local elections -- condemned as "fake" by Poroshenko -- into next year.

Those polls are meant to be conducted under Ukrainian law.

But the rebels had barred pro-Kiev candidates from registration and had vowed to hold the vote under their own terms.

Source: AFP