Ukrainian army pulls back in eastern Luhansk region

Kiev military forces constructed new fortifications on Saturday after Ukraine's military and Russian-backed rebel forces began the phased withdrawal in Zolote on Tuesday. That is a part of a series of measures to end a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people in the last five years. The village of Katerynivka now exists in the 'gray zone' where the Ukrainian military patrols. Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed following Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its support for separatist fighters who control swathes of territory in eastern Ukraine. A ceasefire signed in the Belarus capital of Minsk in 2015 halted the worst of the bloodshed.