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Moscow, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday announced a “lasting cease-fire” in eastern Ukraine, potentially a major step toward bringing the increasingly bloody conflict to a close.
The surprise decision comes as Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine have made rapid strides to retake territory in the last week, after apparently receiving an infusion of support from Russia, which the Kremlin denies.
Poroshenko’s office announced the cease-fire in the eastern Donets Basin region, also known as Donbass, after a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The conversation resulted in an agreement about a lasting ceasefire in Donbass. There was a mutual understanding achieved about steps that will promote the establishment of peace,” Poroshenko’s office announced in a brief statement on its Web site.
Just last month, Ukraine’s military had appeared to be on the verge of defeating the pro-Russian rebels who had waged a bloody war in eastern Ukraine since mid-April. But the balance turned last week after a column of tanks and armored personnel carriers flying rebel flags rolled into Ukraine near the key port city of Mariupol, opening another front in the conflict. Kiev’s forces have been forced into a sudden and major retreat.
It was not immediately clear whether the cease-fire would hold. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Wednesday that the two leaders had not agreed on a cease-fire, merely discussed steps needed to achieve peace, state-run Rossiya 24 television reported. Russia has steadfastly denied that it is a party to the conflict and says that it has no control over the rebels.
Poroshenko also does not maintain full control over pro-Kiev volunteer militias that have joined the ordinary army in the fight against the rebels and may be inclined to keep fighting despite instructions from Kiev.
Rebel leaders gave conflicting responses Wednesday to Russian news agencies about whether they would hold to a cease-fire. A day earlier they were saying that they wanted independence from Ukraine, a step that would be politically impossible for Poroshenko to agree to.
Even if the hostilities do come to a temporary end, Poroshenko will likely come under fire from Ukrainian hardliners who have put heavy pressure on him to stop at nothing short of a full military victory in the east. A previous cease-fire in June quickly broke down after each side accused the other of violating it.
But Ukraine’s military — never well-equipped or well-trained to begin with — has been suffering steep losses in recent weeks, and it has been unclear how long it can hold out against tough attacks from the pro-Russian side. NATO has said that at least 1,000 Russian soldiers are fighting on Ukrainian soil and that Russian artillery has been firing on Ukrainian positions from both inside and outside the country.
It remained unclear Wednesday what concessions, if any, Poroshenko had made to Putin. The Russian leader called for “statehood” for the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine in an interview broadcast Sunday, although his spokesman later said that what Putin meant was autonomy within the Ukrainian state. Russia has also sought guarantees that Ukraine would never be able to join the NATO defense alliance.
Putin reportedly recently told a top E.U. official that “if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks,” a further ratcheting-up of rhetoric that has contributed to the impression that the Kremlin was unwilling to allow the rebels to be defeated. A top Kremlin aide on Tuesday did not deny that Putin had made the remark in conversation with E.U. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, but said that it had been taken out of context.
Before the Ukrainian ceasefire announcement, Putin’s spokesman told Russian news agencies on Wednesday that the two leaders had found common ground in how to end the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, according to Interfax, the Russian news agency.
“The viewpoints of the presidents of the two countries largely coincide on possible ways out of the grave crisis situation,” Peskov was quoted as saying.
The comments came one day after Russia said it was reviewing its military strategy in the face of expected NATO plans to establish a rapid-reaction force capable of deploying quickly to Eastern Europe, ratcheting up tensions ahead of a NATO summit this week.
The review of the Kremlin’s military doctrine came as Russian-backed rebels made fresh gains Tuesday on the ground in eastern Ukraine, where they have swiftly recaptured territory after appearing close to defeat just weeks ago. Kiev and its allies have said Russia has sent in its own troops to tip the balance in favor of the rebels, a charge the Kremlin denies.
NATO leaders meeting later this week in Wales are expected to endorse the creation of a military force of about 4,000 troops capable of deploying to Eastern Europe on about eight hours’ notice.
Russia’s intent to improve its plans to counter NATO forces, announced without further detail Tuesday by a top Kremlin official, brings the sides closer to a large-scale armed confrontation than they have been at any other time since the end of the Cold War.
“The issue of NATO military infrastructure encroaching on our borders, including through the expansion of the alliance, will remain among the biggest military threats to the Russian Federation,” Mikhail Popov, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Western officials in recent years told the Kremlin that NATO was not focused on Russia, Popov said. But now, he said, the Kremlin’s long-term concerns about the alliance have been proved correct.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday that Ukraine’s moves to join NATO were undermining efforts to end the war there. He called on the White House to use its influence on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during his planned visit to Washington this month.
“The most important thing is the need to talk sense into the party of war in Kiev, and in large part only the United States can do this,” he said.
