Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine have released 1,200 prisoners, President Petro Poroshenko has said.
The releases followed Friday’s ceasefire deal, he said, which included an exchange of prisoners.
He was speaking during a visit to the strategic south-eastern port city of Mariupol, which has come under shelling from pro-Russian rebels in recent days.
Mr Poroshenko announced his arrival in a tweet: “Mariupol is Ukraine. We will not surrender this land to anyone.”
The ceasefire appears to be holding, although the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which brokered the deal, described it on Monday as “shaky”.
Before the truce came into place, pro-Russian separatists made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol.
Mr Poroshenko said during his visit on Monday that the city’s defences would be reinforced and that rebels would suffer a “crushing defeat” if they advanced on the city.
Mariupol is the last city in Donetsk region still held by the Ukrainian government and is a strategic port on the route to Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in March.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has left some 2,600 people dead since April.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state.
The releases followed Friday’s ceasefire deal, he said, which included an exchange of prisoners.
He was speaking during a visit to the strategic south-eastern port city of Mariupol, which has come under shelling from pro-Russian rebels in recent days.
Mr Poroshenko announced his arrival in a tweet: “Mariupol is Ukraine. We will not surrender this land to anyone.”
The ceasefire appears to be holding, although the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which brokered the deal, described it on Monday as “shaky”.
Before the truce came into place, pro-Russian separatists made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol.
Mr Poroshenko said during his visit on Monday that the city’s defences would be reinforced and that rebels would suffer a “crushing defeat” if they advanced on the city.
Mariupol is the last city in Donetsk region still held by the Ukrainian government and is a strategic port on the route to Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in March.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has left some 2,600 people dead since April.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state.
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