The WSJ reports,"Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday that he would unveil a detailed peace plan in the coming days to end fighting with separatists in the east and that a cease-fire could be achieved as early as this week, despite continuing clashes.
Mr. Poroshenko laid out the broad outlines of the peace plan during his inauguration this month, saying he was willing to negotiate and offer an amnesty to fighters who didn't have "blood on their hands." The remarks appeared to backtrack from his call following his May election victory for an accelerated military operation to stamp out the pro-Russia rebellion".
"But the president said that a cease-fire could happen only after Ukraine regains full control of its Russian border, of which the separatists now control wide stretches in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine has accused Russia of allowing arms and fighters to cross the boundary unhindered. Last week, Kiev and the U.S. said they had fresh evidence the Kremlin had armed fighters with tanks and heavy weapons".
"As soon as the border is secured, we shall be able to declare a cease-fire straight away. Declaring a cease-fire now with an open border is irresponsible given the situation that exists in Donetsk and Luhansk," Mr. Poroshenko said at a meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council.
He said the length of any cease-fire would be limited and the immediate goal would be to guarantee the safety of people living in the separatist-controlled regions and stop looting there. Afterward, the focus would be on disarmament and sorting out an amnesty for those who haven't committed "egregious crimes."
The council's secretary, Andriy Parubiy, said earlier Monday that there are now up to 20,000 separatist fighters in the region and that more than half of them had come from Russia. He also said there were signs that Russian soldiers—whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered back to their bases from the border last month—were returning to their positions along the frontier.
A military spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said while there are signs of Russian troop movement on a regular basis, there was no evidence yet of a substantial build up on the border. Russia had stationed an estimated 40,000 soldiers along the border following the ouster of Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych in February. But NATO says the vast majority appear to have pulled back.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Monday that fighting in eastern Ukraine has damaged a key water pumping station outside the regional capital of Donetsk, threatening water supplies to four million people.
