(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Ukrainian military said yesterday it was preparing to pull back its guns from the frontline in the separatist east as a fragile truce with pro-Russian insurgents appeared to be taking hold.
Rebel leaders also said they were ready to give peace a chance after five months of bloodletting that set off the most serious East-West crisis since the Cold War.
Across the rebel-held regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, the level of violence appears to have subsided although Kiev said it lost two soldiers in overnight raids by "armed gangs".
The deaths bring to 39 the number of Ukrainian troops and civilians killed since the warring sides signed a September 5 truce that Nato's top military commander warned at the weekend was holding "in name only".
But hopes of peace gathered pace after the ceasefire was reinforced Saturday by another deal signed in Minsk calling for the withdrawal of fighters to allow the creation of a 30-kilometre buffer zone.
"We are making preparations to move back our heavy weapons 15 kilometres from the frontline," said Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko.
The "deputy prime minister" of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Andrei Purgin, said the rebels were ready to carry out their side of the bargain even if it was "with great difficulty".
"Show me a conflict that stopped simply because some document was signed. That just doesn't happen," he told AFP, but added that there was progress.
"There is a chance. We need to work on it and then there will be an even greater chance."
President Petro Poroshenko also remarked Sunday on the apparent "de-escalation" but warned that Ukraine would defend itself with renewed vigour should the nine-point Minsk plan collapse.
The OSCE pan-European security group has 80 observers on the ground to check compliance with the truce on the frontline and Ukraine's porous border with Russia.
But the Donetsk city government said the coal mining hub - abandoned by nearly half its one million residents since hostilities first erupted in April - experienced "no active combat" for the second day running.
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