Ukrainian, Russian officials start work to set up 'buffer zone' in east

KIEV (Reuters) - Senior Ukrainian and Russian military officials met on Friday to mark out a proposed 'buffer zone' in eastern Ukraine from which government forces and separatists will pull back artillery and other heavy armaments, Ukrainian military officials said.

The officials said a three-party group, which also included 76 Russian military and representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), met north of the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Envoys from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE agreed at a meeting in the Belarussian capital of Minsk on Sept. 19 to establish a 30-km (19-mile) buffer zone and pull heavy weaponry out of the area to build on a ceasefire that was declared on Sept. 5.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Richard Balmforth; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)