LONDON (MarketWatch) — European stocks climbed Wednesday after Kiev said it had reached a deal with Russia for a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, though both sides later pulled back on the claim. Early Wednesday morning, Kiev said Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had struck an agreement for a permanent truce in the Donbas region, where the Russian separatist-held city of Donetsk is located. A Kremlin official then said Putin had not agreed on a cease-fire, because Russia isn’t a party to the fighting, according to a report from news agency RIA Novosti. Moscow and Kiev, the official said, did discuss how to resolve the conflict. Later, Poroshenko’s office modified its statement on the talks with Putin, to replace “the conversation resulted in an agreement on constant cease-fire� with “the conversation resulted in an agreement on cease-fire regime�. Market reaction: Benchmark stock indexes leapt to intraday highs on the initial Poroshenko statement, though they slightly pared gains following the RIA Novosti report. But the Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, +0.76% remained higher by 0.8% at 345.56, and Germany’s DAX DAX, +1.22% powered up 1.3%. Russian blue-chips bounced up, pulling the MICEX index XX:MCX to a 2.7% gain. The RTS index RU:RTS rallied 4.2%. The ruble rose following Kiev’s announcement, with the dollar USDRUB, -1.46% buying 36.9230, compared with 37.4426 on Tuesday. The euro EURUSD, +0.14% briefly fell against the greenback after the Kremlin comments, but returned to higher levels, buying $1.3152, compared with $1.3132 on Tuesday. News of the cease-fire emerged just as data firm Markit said its final services-sector activity index for the euro zone was 53.1 in August, compared with expectations for a 53.5 reading. In Paris, the CAC 40 index PX1, +1.14% rose 1.2%, and in London, the FTSE 100 index UKX, +0.76% advanced 0.8% to 6,883.

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