Pseudo-peace

HOPES for the latest peace plan in Ukraine were never high. Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, began playing down expectations immediately after signing the deal, saying it would be "difficult" to realise. Before a bank of television cameras at midnight on Sunday, he issued the order for his troops to cease fire. The first casualties came just twenty minutes later, when rebel rockets struck a village west of Luhansk, bringing a roof down on two elderly residents. By morning, Ukrainian and separatist leaders were trading accusations of fresh attacks. Ukrainian officials claimed there were more than 60 violations in the first day, a sharp drop from the pitched battles of the previous week, but an inauspicious start. "The pseudo-peace is advancing at full speed," commented Yuri Kasyanov, a prominent Ukrainian activist.

Most of the shelling is centered around Debaltseve, the beleaguered transport hub, where pro-Russian rebels refuse to observe the ceasefire. “The Minsk agreement doesn’t say a word about Debaltseve,” says Alexander Zakharchenko, the Donetsk separatist leader. Rebel troops made a final push to take the city during the two and a half days between the signing of the Minsk deal and the start of the ceasefire, an interregnum insisted upon by Russia and the separatists. American officials allege that the Russian military took part in the offensive, deploying artillery and rocket systems to the area. Now, rebel forces claim to have encircled the city and the thousands of Ukrainian troops stationed there. Mr Zakharchenko says he will not allow them to escape.