President Petro Poroshenko’s call for peacekeepers to be deployed to monitor Ukraine’s fragile truce has failed to win widespread support.<br /><br /> In Kyiv, EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn focussed instead on the need for parties involved in the conflict to respect the ceasefire.<br /><br /> On the ground, one group of Ukrainian troops could hardly contain their relief at getting out alive from the strategic town of Debaltseve. Back on government-held territory, they smiled and took photographs of each other.<br /><br /> Thousands of weary and demoralised government soldiers withdrew from Debaltseve on Wednesday in one of the worst defeats suffered by Kyiv in 10 months of fighting.<br /><br /> Pro-Russian rebels have maintained that the ceasefire did not apply to <br />Debaltseve, suggesting they may now observe it, having captured the town. <br /><br /> Western countries say Russia is behind the rebel advance, deploying thousands of troops with advanced weaponry into eastern Ukraine to fight on the separatists’ behalf. Moscow
