Ukraine and Russia reach ‘permanent truce’ over Ukraine conflict

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he has agreed a ‘permanent truce’ over the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the situation in eastern Ukraine. The details of this ceasefire are not yet known.

“Their conversation resulted in agreement on a permanent ceasefire in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk,” a spokesperson for Poroshenko said. “They reached a mutual understanding on steps leading to peace.”

This update comes as United States President Barack Obama landed in Estonia for talks with the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania ahead of a Nato summit in Wales. Obama is expected to reassure the former Soviet states that the United States is ready to defend them against Russia.  The three Baltic countries are all members of Nato. 

Elsewhere, the death of a Russian journalist in Ukraine has been confirmed. Rossia Sevodnya’s Andrei Stenin was killed by Ukrainian government forces on 6 August as he was travelling in a car with rebels and refugees near Donetsk, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced.

“The car had been shot up and burnt on a highway in the vicinity of Donetsk,” Rossia Sevodnya director Dmitriy Kisilev said. “The autopsy results came back this morning. Stenin was indeed in that car.”

Over 2,600 civilians and fighters have died and a more than a million people have fled their homes since fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine, when pro-Russian rebels declared the formation of two new states in the region. The West and the Ukrainian government has accused Russia of sending troops and military equipment over the border to aid the rebels, who have recently made significant advances against the Ukrainian government. Russia has continuously denied these allegations.