Ukraine truce' not dead'

France yesterday insisted the truce it helped broker last week in the Belarus capital Minsk "was not dead” after Ukrainian troops pulled out of the flashpoint eastern town of Debaltseve after it was stormed by pro-Russian rebels.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said 80 percent of the thousands of soldiers in the town -- a strategic railway hub sandwiched between the two main rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Lugansk -- had withdrawn.
AFP journalists near the town but prevented from entering saw dozens of army tanks and vehicles carrying haggard soldiers leaving Debaltseve.
The rebels' assault on Debaltseve dealt a heavy blow to the European-brokered truce agreed by all sides last week in a bid to quell a 10-month conflict that has killed more than 5,600 people.
A French government spokesman noted "progress" along much of the rest of the conflict zone and said all would be done to hold the ceasefire together.
French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Poroshenko were to speak by telephone yesterday.
Western countries blame the relentless violence in Ukraine on Russia. They say Moscow is cynically playing with the truce -- which won unanimous backing from the UN Security Council on Tuesday -- to keep Ukraine destabilised.
"The actions by the Russia-backed separatists in Debaltseve are a clear violation of the ceasefire," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Russia to "withdraw all its forces from eastern Ukraine, to stop its support for separatists and to respect the Minsk agreement".