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 The truce envisages the creation of a neutral "buffer zone" and
withdrawal of the heavy weapons responsible for many of the 5,000
casualties in the conflict that broke out almost a year ago.
"Ahead of midnight, rebels are trying to complete tactically
important plans to enlarge the territory under their control,
primarily in the direction of Debaltseve," spokesman Andriy Lysenko
said at a daily televised briefing in Kiev.
Debaltseve, a strategic transport hub northeast of the
rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, has been the focus of some of the
fiercest fighting in recent weeks.
Lysenko said separatists were receiving support from fighters and
military equipment crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine.
Moscow denies supplying the rebels with arms and troops although
Western officials cite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The rebels have advanced far past the line of an earlier ceasefire
deal, agreed in September, and the new accord appears to envisage
them pulling their guns back around 75 km, to take them back behind
it, while Ukrainian guns would move 25 km back.
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Seven Ukrainian service personnel have been killed and 23 wounded in
fighting in the past 24 hours, Lysenko said.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Alessandra Prentice;
Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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