Ukraine's embarrassed armed forces on Friday said it had recovered two armored personnel carriers that were seized earlier in the week by pro-Russian rebels when a military offensive turned to humiliation.

"As part of a special operation, commandos recovered two of the captured APCs from the extremists," Kiev's defense ministry said in a statement.

Members of the Jewish community in the pro-Russian protest hub of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine said Friday that they were left shaken by the distribution of tracts demanding the registration of Jews.

Concerns were evident, despite skepticism from Jewish leaders in the region and a U.S. group fighting anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League, that the pamphlets handed out in front of the synagogue on Tuesday were anything more than calculated "provocation" by unknown parties.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Friday pledged "special status" for the Russian language and a broad decentralization of power in a bid to defuse pro-Moscow protests sweeping the east of the country.

"We will accord special status to the Russian language and guarantee to protect it," Yatsenyuk said.

The four-way agreement on Ukraine thrashed out in Geneva is the first sign of progress between Russia and the West in a months-long standoff, but a litany of problems remain unresolved, analysts said.

Russia is clearly keen to avoid sanctions that could hurt its already fragile economy and President Vladimir Putin is wary of provoking a military conflict with the West or a civil war in Ukraine, they added.

Pro-Russian rebels kept their grip on seized government buildings in Ukraine on Friday, a day after Kiev struck a deal with Russia and the West aimed at easing the crisis in the ex-Soviet republic.

As part of the surprise agreement hammered out in talks in Geneva Thursday, "all illegal armed groups" were due to disarm and leave seized state buildings.

Pamphlets ordering Jews in east Ukraine's main city to register sparked a fierce storm of indignation on Thursday, with strident condemnation from Western officials and dire fears of a Nazi-style pogrom -- but were skeptically dismissed by the local chief rabbi as nothing more than "provocation".

"What happened of course smells of a provocation. As to who is behind it -- that is an open question," rabbi Pinkhas Vyshedski said in comments published on the website of the Donetsk Jewish community.

Ukraine has accepted the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction to probe crimes committed before and during the fall of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, the Hague-based ICC said on Thursday.

"Today the registrar received a declaration lodged by Ukraine accepting the ICC's jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes committed in its territory from November 21, 2013 to February 22, 2014,"

Faced with a pro-Russian uprising in the east, economic collapse and the demands of the protest movement that bought them to power, Ukraine's beleaguered leaders are struggling to stay afloat.

Prior to his appointment as prime minister, following the ouster of Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in February, current premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk lamented that whoever agreed to take over the country would be committing "political suicide."

The United States will send helmets, medical supplies and other non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine amid fears of another Russian incursion there, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.

Hagel said he had informed Kiev that President Barack Obama "has approved additional non-lethal military assistance for health and welfare items and other supplies."

Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and EU reached a surprise deal Thursday on de-escalating the worsening Ukrainian crisis, in a ray of hope for the former Soviet republic that has plunged into chaos.

The agreement reached in Geneva comes as a strong contrast to earlier hawkish comments made by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who left the door open for intervention in Ukraine.