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Head of Donetsk Republic: Donetsk militia will observe ceasefire from midnight Feb 15

"DPR will stop fire today at 24:00 across the republic, like it is written in the peace agreements signed in Minsk on February 12," the Donetsk news agency reports

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. Militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) will observe ceasefire from midnight on February 15, the republic’s head Alexander Zakharchenko said on Saturday.

"DPR will stop fire today at 24:00 across the republic, like it is written in the peace agreements signed in Minsk on February 12," the Donetsk news agency reports.

On February 11, the Normandy Quartet negotiations - presidents of Russia, Ukraine and France and German chancellor - in Minsk in various formats (in private and with other delegations) lasted for the total of 16 hours from 7:15p.m. local time.

On February 12, members of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian conflict settlement signed a four-page set of measures to implement the earlier Minsk agreements.

The document was signed by OSCE Special Representative Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine’s second President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, as well as leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky. The first point of the document sets condition for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire beginning from 00:00 hours (Kiev time) on February 15, 2015. The conflicting parties agreed on withdrawal of all heavy weapons. Parties will pullback all heavy weapons to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the Tochka-U tactical rocket systems.