Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels say they have agreed to halt fire across the eastern war zone on December 9 under the terms of a Kremlin-brokered truce.
President Petro Poroshenko says the terms of the new ceasefire are already included in an earlier peace deal agreed with the help of European representatives in the Belarussian capital Minsk on September.
But the Minsk Agreement published at the time made no mention of a specific date on which the two sides were due to lay down their arms.
Poroshenko says Kiev has prepared "measures that should ensure the implementation of the Minsk Agreement concerning a Day of Silence that is due to begin on December 9".
A source in Poroshenko's office told AFP the president's statement meant that Ukraine will begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the eastern frontline on December 10, as long as the separatists also observe the truce.
The parliament speaker of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic confirmed that the ceasefire is part of the Minsk deal.
"The (Minsk) group, which included our and Ukrainian military officials, as well as OSCE and Russian mediators, agreed to halt fire on December 9," Andrei Purgin told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency.
But Purgin refused to say whether he thinks the agreement will be able to end fighting that has killed more than 4300 people in eight months.
Observers had assumed the September ceasefire was effective immediately and no indication was previously given that hostilities would only end in December.
Several truce deals announced in the course of the war were broken within a matter of days by both rebels and Ukrainian soldiers who refused to listen to their political leaders.
The head of the neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic says a ceasefire that will begin in mid-December was discussed at the Minsk negotiations, but stressed that no written agreement on a specific date was ever reached.
Share
