Russia and Ukraine have reached a new agreement to restore a 2020 ceasefire deal in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak hailed the deal, saying the coming holidays “should be peaceful”.
The deal was brokered by Europe’s OSCE security organisation as a step towards de-escalation.
The agreement coincides with heightened tensions in the region.
The EU-Russian relations have witnessed a setback over several issues, mainly Kremlin-orchestrated cyber-attacks and election interference, the frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, and the poisoning and jailing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the EU has imposed a set of tight sanctions on Russia.
The war in eastern Ukraine began in 2014, and it is an ongoing conflict between the
Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
14,000 were injured, and more than 2m Ukrainians were displaced either in other parts of the country or abroad due to the seven-year war.
For seven years, Ukrainian forces have been at war with Russian-backed separatists who seized large areas of eastern Ukraine.
More than 14,000 people died in that time. Although combat ended in 2015, clashes continued to break out. Thus, a July 2020 ceasefire brought the violence to an end.
Ceasefire violations have surged of late, and defence officials in Kyiv accuse Russia of sending 122,000 troops to within 200km (125 miles) of Ukraine’s borders.
