Truce in Ukraine Spawns Hope, Doubt in West
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Ukraine, Russia-Backed Rebels Agree, but U.S. Europe Keep Sanctions Pressure on Moscow.
A tentative peace deal for Ukraine reached Friday raised hopes for a resolution of the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, even as the U.S. and Europe beefed up sanctions aimed at pressuring Russia to leave the battlefield.
After a day of continued fighting, Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russia separatists in the east of the country said they had stopped their military operations when the cease-fire went into effect at 6 p.m. local time.
The deal was described as a series of 12 steps toward ending the five-month conflict that has cost at least 2,000 lives. The first step, the cease-fire, was to be followed by a prisoner exchange and delivery of humanitarian aid on Saturday. But the rest of the package, including how much autonomy the rebel-held areas will gain, remained murky.
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