DONETSK (Sputnik) — The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine agreed on a ceasefire from 00-00 June 24, the truce should last until August 31, the press service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic's plenipotentiary representative at the Minsk talks Denis Pushilin said Wednesday.
"Participants of the Contact Group supported the idea of the so-called 'grain ceasefire' — a ceasefire regime for harvesting, starting from 00-00 on June 24. According to the proposal, the truce should last until August 31. However, the negotiators expressed the hope that the silence will last longer," Pushilin's spokeswoman Viktoria Talakina wrote on Facebook.
Ukrainian envoy Leonid Kuchma's spokeswoman Daria Olifer wrote on Facebook following the Contact Group's meeting in Minsk that Kiev confirmed the agreement to cease fire in Donbas from June 24.
In turn, Martin Sajdik, special representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine, also confirmed the ceasefire, adding that the Trilateral Contact Group decided to convey this initiative to their political leadership.
The military conflict in Ukraine erupted in 2014 after the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government that came to power in what they perceived to be a coup. The ceasefire agreement was reached in Minsk in 2015, brokered by the leaders of the Normandy Four group, but the situation has remained tense. On March 15, the Trilateral Contact Group decided to declare on a new ceasefire in Donbas for the duration of the Easter holidays starting on April 1. However, the ceasefire failed to hold with both sides of the conflict continuing to blame each other of violations.
