It also seems that the withdrawal of heavy weapons is getting back on track. The parties met in late September and gave themselves 39 day to withdraw tanks, artillery, and mortars up to 120mm in calibre and to pulled them back by 15 kilometres from the contact line. On October 3, Luhansk People Republic stated that their operations started: "Right now the tanks have begun movement to a new location, which is at least 15 kilometres away from the engagement line" (source: RT). Similarly, a Ukrainian army’s spokesman stated on Facebook: "Today, in Luhansk region we began a simultaneous removal of T-64 and T-72 tanks and in some places anti-tank artillery D-48 and D-44 and ... mortars" (source: The Telegraph).
Despite all these positive signs, the pacification process if far from being over. Should the withdrawal of heavy weapons end smoothly, it would be possible to jump in a new phase of the entire process in which the elections in the separatist Republics, which will be held in 2016 instead of this October, represents a very delicate issue.
