DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - Separatist leaders in two main areas of Ukraine's east have agreed to observe a ceasefire with Ukrainian forces until June 27, one of them, Alexander Boroday, said on Monday.
The truce is to run parallel to a unilateral Ukrainian military ceasefire declared by President Petro Poroshenko on Friday as part of a peace plan to end the insurgency by pro-Russian separatists in the Russian-speaking east that threatens the dismemberment of the former Soviet republic. The separatists' announcement, after talks which also involved a senior Russian diplomat and a former Ukrainian president, came after a day of high diplomacy in which the West urged Russia to use its influence to defuse the conflict in Ukraine's rebellious east.