KIEV, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The delayed troop pullback in the Petrivske area in eastern Ukraine have started and the whole process will last for three days, a local press official said on Saturday.
"White rockets (signal flare) were launched at 12:01 (0901 GMT), green rockets were launched at 12:15 (0915 GMT) and the equipment began to move at 12:20 (0920 GMT) ... Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, the servicepersons and the military equipment will be withdrawn," said Andriy Aheev, the head of the Joint Forces Operation press center.
The troop pullback in the Bohdanivka and Petrivske areas in the Donetsk region, scheduled for Nov. 4, was postponed reportedly due to the violation of ceasefire there on Oct. 30.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that an agreement on the troop pullback from Petrivske villages and the city of Zolote in Luhansk Region had been reached at the Trilateral Contact Group meeting in Minsk on Oct. 1.
The troop pullback in Zolote started on Oct. 29.
The lack of progress on the troop pullback process is one of the main obstacles to arranging a summit between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, known as the Normandy Four, where the next steps of the conflict resolution in eastern Ukraine should be decided.
