Truce holds, but peace deal falters

Fighting has died down in east Ukraine since a new truce began, but Kiev has not moved forward on other provisions of a peace plan brokered by Germany and France, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"A relative stabilization has indeed taken place from Sept 1 and there is practically no shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces of civilian populated areas in Donbas," Peskov told reporters, referring to the rebel-held east Ukraine.

A separatist leader in east Ukraine, Andrei Purgin, was detained by fellow rebels in a power struggle as the breakaway region prepares to hold its own elections, sources said.

A Purgin ally and a source with the rebel security forces said he was arrested on Friday, the day he was also dismissed as the head of the separatist parliament, near the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, after returning from Russia.

Purgin was arrested along with his wife, said Ellada Shaftner, a member of the rebel parliament who had been traveling with Purgin and was present at the scene. The rebel security service source said Purgin and his wife were being interrogated.

"Purgin was exceptionally independent and had his own political line," said the former head of the rebels' self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, who is a Russian citizen.

The spokeswoman for top rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko declined to comment.

Purgin used to be a deputy to Borodai, who moved back to Moscow last summer as Zakharchenko took over in Donetsk.

A former head of the rebel parliament's administration also was dismissed and was now wanted by rebel security forces, said Denis Pushilin, who has taken over as the head of the separatist Donetsk parliament.

Purgin has been a prominent member of the rebel leadership since separatist unrest erupted in the industrial, Russian-speaking east Ukraine in April 2014. He has been a rebel representative in peace talks involving France and Germany.

(China Daily 09/09/2015 page11)