Petro Poroshenko: Ceasefire in Donbas starts at 17:00

The President of Ukraine made a statement in Newport ahead of the bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Norway.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said during the NATO Summit that a preliminary protocol to start a ceasefire was signed in Minsk, BBC reports. The truce is expected to start at 17:00 on Friday. “We hope we will announce the ceasefire at 17:00, Minsk time,” Poroshenko said.

The document was signed at a meeting of the trilateral contact group. The OSCE was represented at the talks by Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine by former president Leonid Kuchma, Russia by ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov. Separatists were represented by “prime minister” of self-proclaimed “DNR” Aleksandr Zakharchenko.