A ceasefire was agreed to end weeks of intense fighting in eastern Ukraine, after all-night talks between the leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin told reporters on Thursday morning in the Belarusian capital Minsk that - after 16 hours of talks - representatives of Ukraine and separatist rebels had signed a package of measures to implementat a failed ceasefire agreement reached last September.
The new ceasefire is to take effect from Saturday at midnight, said Mr Putin, who added that Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande would soon issue a statement of support for this process.