Donbass Reports Halt in Fighting as New Ceasefire Comes Into Force

DONETSK (Sputnik) – On December 21, the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine announced that a new ceasefire would come into effect in southeastern Ukraine ahead of winter holidays, on midnight December 24.

"No ceasefire violations have been registered so far, starting from midnight. Before that, there was shelling of the southern areas, around Donetsk and Horlivka," DPR Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin told RIA Novosti after midnight on Saturday.

Representatives of the Luhansk people’s republic also reported general adherence to the cessation of hostilities.

"The people’s militia is strictly adhering to the ceasefire," an LPR militia spokesperson told RIA Novosti in the early hours of Saturday, adding that no ceasefire violations on the part of Kiev forces had been registered so far in the direction of Debaltseve.

Kiev launched a special military operation in Ukraine’s southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities, which came to power as a result of a coup. In February 2015, the two sides reached a peace agreement after talks brokered by the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine — the so-called Normandy Format — in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Kiev has been reluctant to implement a number of Minsk deal provisions.

Multiple ceasefires have been introduced in Donbass since the start of the conflict, but all of them have failed to hold as both sides blamed each other for violations.

Debaltseve became the most recent hotspot of violence in Donbass, while Donetsk and Horlivka saw intense fighting in the period between November 2015 – February 2016.