Similar Stories to Nato Warns On Ukraine Truce As Fighters Set To Pull Back on Bing News

Kiev (AFP) - Ukrainian forces and pro-Kremlin militias were due Sunday to pull back under a new peace plan, but NATO's top military commander warned that there was a ceasefire "in name only" on the ground.The warring sides are required to move back fighters and weaponry and create a buffer zone along the frontline that splits the separatist east of Ukraine from the rest of the ex-Soviet state.The withdrawal and an accompanying monitoring mission by teams from the OSCE pan-European security body are at the heart of a nine-point plan struck early Saturday in the Belarussian capital Minsk.The deal is meant to reinforce a truce forged on September 5 in a bid to stem five months of conflict that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives and threatened Ukraine's very survival.AFP reporters said the situation on the ground appeared calm early Sunday, but it was not immediately known if there had been any movement of government troops or rebels.NATO top commander, General Philip Breedlove, said Saturday that continued clashes had shown the two-week-old agreement to be a ceasefire "in name only" and accused Russia of keeping soldiers on Ukrainian soil to bolster the insurgents.The truce was "still there in name, but what is happening on the ground is quite a different story," he said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting symbolically convened in the ex-Soviet satellite state of Lithuania.But he struck a more optimistic note when he spoke of Saturday's Minsk agreement.