Jane Onyanga-Omara

USA TODAY

A Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said Tuesday his group would begin a cease-fire at midnight Wednesday local time and urged the government to follow suit.

The announcement by Alexander Zakharchenko, who leads the rebels in Donetsk, aired on Russian television and could be a move toward ending the more than 2-year-old conflict.

Over 9,500 people have died since the conflict began in April 2014. Last year, the Ukrainian government signed a peace accord with the separatists in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, but it failed to take effect.

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Zakharchenko, dressed in a suit instead of his usual camouflage, berated the Ukrainian government for a “lack of willingness to solve the problem in a peaceful manner.”

In the recorded TV announcement, he said the rebels are “fully committed to the Minsk agreements” and see them as “the only solution.” It was the first time the separatists announced a unilateral cease-fire.

It came soon after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he expected lawmakers to vote soon on constitutional amendments to give autonomy to parts of eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko is scheduled to meet Wednesday with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Poland and Britain.

On Tuesday, Russian forces broke a cease-fire agreement signed two weeks ago by attacking Stanytsia Luhanska, a key eastern border town, killing at least three Ukrainian soldiers and wounding more than a dozen, The Times of London reported.