"I can say that today artillery shelling no longer takes place along the 485-kilometer (301-mile) front line, with the exception of certain areas around [the villages of] Peski and Andreevka," Poroshenko told the Ukrainian state-run TV channel late Monday night.
The Ukrainian president also said that the Donetsk Airport is the only place left in Donbas, where, according to Kiev forces' information, "several weapons" remain. Poroshenko proposed to send a special monitoring mission to the area, explaining that representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) "are denied" access to some parts of Donbas.
A ceasefire came into force in Ukraine following the signing of the February 12 Minsk agreements, which also stipulate the creation of a secure buffer zone in Donbas through the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the line of contact between the conflicting sides.
The Kiev forces announced last Wednesday that they had begun the second stage of their weaponry pullback. Meanwhile the Donbas self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR) said that they completed the withdrawal from the line of contact on March 1, meeting the deadline stipulated by the Minsk agreements.
The OSCE, which has been tasked with monitoring the ceasefire agreement implementation, has not fully confirmed the weapon pullback in Donbas, having requested more detailed information from both sides. OSCE monitors have also reported some continuing violations of the ceasefire, which came into force on February 15.
