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Europe leaders urge ‘immediate’ peace in east Ukraine

Tuesday, 24 May 2016 5:14 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 24 May 2016 6:36 AM ]

Experts examine the site next to a car destroyed by shelling at a checkpoint in Olenivka, small village in the east of Ukraine, on April 27, 2016. ©AFP

Leaders of France, Germany and Russia have urged an immediate implementation of the truce agreement in eastern Ukraine after fresh clashes between Ukrainian troops and pro-independence forces.

The leaders spoke over the phone on Monday after a Ukrainian soldier was killed the day before amid renewed fighting with pro-Moscow forces near the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel along with France's Francois Hollande and Russia's Vladimir Putin called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

They “recalled their commitment to the Minsk peace accords and their determination to do everything to ensure they are implemented in full as quickly as possible,” Hollande's office said in a statement.

The Minsk accords, signed in February 2015, calls for a ceasefire along with a range of measures to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Both parties have accused each other of breaking the ceasefire on numerous occasions.

Pro-Russian forces withdraw their tanks from position near town of Novoazovsk in Donetsk region on October 21, 2015. ©AFP

Putin’s office on Monday urged the Ukrainian army to stop shelling civilian-populated areas in Donbass.

It said Kiev and local authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine need to engage in direct dialog.

In April, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said that it could take years for the conflict to end.

Earlier in May, France and Germany held a round of negotiations with Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to find a lasting peace deal; however, no consensus was reached over elections in eastern Ukraine.

Conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine after people in the country’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea decided to separate from Ukraine and reunite with Russia in a March 2014 referendum.

The West, however, brands the development as Moscow’s annexation of the territory. The US and its allies in Europe also accuse Moscow of having a hand in the crisis in eastern Ukraine, a charge that Moscow denies.

Donetsk and Lugansk have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations later in April 2014 to crush pro-Moscow protests there.

The crisis has left about 9,200 people dead and over 21,000 others injured, according to the United Nations.

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