Ukraine’s President Notes Brief Calm in Conflict

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/world/europe/ukraines-president-notes-brief-calm-in-conflict.html

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MOSCOW — The Ukrainian president, Petro O. Poroshenko, said Friday that a 24-hour period had gone by without the military’s reporting any deaths among Ukrainian soldiers or civilians for the first time in seven months in the war in eastern Ukraine.

A fragile cease-fire was taking hold, Mr. Poroshenko said in a speech in Australia, where he was on a state visit. “I pray that we continue this process,” he said.

But after Mr. Poroshenko spoke, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported that two members of a volunteer militia, the Azov battalion, had died in fighting near the city of Mariupol.

The war has killed more than 4,300 civilians and soldiers on both sides of the conflict, the United Nations estimates.