Ukrainian Cease-fire Elusive on the Ground
COSTELLO: Ukrainian troops are pulling out of a key battleground in their fight with pro-Russia separatists. The Ukrainian president says 80 percent of armed forces have now left the town of Debaltseve, taking their tanks, artillery, and military trucks with them. He's demanding world leaders have a tough response to Russia. A fragile cease-fire took effect on Sunday but it's done little to stop the fighting in parts of Eastern Ukraine. In a CNN exclusive, Frederik Pleitgen went to the frontlines of another town where a cease-fire may be effect on paper but certainly not on the ground.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cease-fire remains elusive in this town. These fighters lead their weapons with great care, then head to the front line. (on camera): We're on the road here with a Ukrainian battalion called the East Corpus Battalion and they say that they still get shelled all the time, that there's attacks from pro-Russian separatists, and that they're doing their best to try and hold this town, but they've already lost a considerable amount of it to the pro-Russian separatists in the past couple of days. (voice-over): Right now only a third of the village is under our control, machine gunner Yury says. With pro-Russian separatists close by, we need to move carefully and frequently run for cover. (on camera): So the men tell us we have to really watch out here because apparently there's a sniper, they believe, somewhere in the distance over there. They say they take fire here pretty much every day and several times a day so they really don't believe in cease-fire that's going on. They say it never really took hold here. (voice-over): The cease-fire is a farce says Commander Olag Shiryayev. The fighting is continuing now the way it did before. They continue to attack us, shell us, they use artillery and mortars, and sometimes they launch raids. It's impossible to tell which side is responsible for breaking the cease-fire here, but to the few civilians we saw, that didn't seem to matter. They were packing any belongings they could and leaving. The fighting here is very heavy, this woman says. All of the windows of our house are broken. It's very terrifying. We saved all our lives to buy our house and now we have nothing. To get back to safety, the fighters lob a smoke grenade to mask our retreat. (on camera): At least in this village here in Eastern Ukraine, we can see that the cease-fire is not working. There appear to be many, many infringements and there certainly isn't any sort of faith that things will get better any time soon. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Shyrokyno Ukraine.</s>COSTELLO: The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.