AFP/Slaviansk
Ukraine’s military has launched assaults to retake rebel-held eastern towns in which up to five people were reported killed, a move Russian President Vladimir Putin warned would have “consequences”.
The offensive sent international tensions soaring and oil prices up on the prospect of Russia making good on its threat of a massive response in the former Soviet republic.
In Slaviansk (also known as Slavyansk and Sloviansk), a flashpoint eastern Ukrainian town held by rebels since mid-April, armoured military vehicles drove past an abandoned roadblock in flames to take up position.
Shots were heard as a helicopter flew overhead, and the pro-Kremlin rebels ordered all civilians out of the town hall to take up defensive positions inside.
“During the clashes, up to five terrorists were eliminated,” and three checkpoints destroyed, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Regional medical authorities confirmed one death and one person wounded.
Hours later, the armoured vehicles withdrew, leaving the town calm but tense.
The rebels, which the Kiev government and its Western backers believe are controlled and supported by Moscow, have been occupying around 10 towns in Ukraine’s east since mid-April.
An international accord reached in Geneva last week was meant to defuse the crisis, but was swiftly dismissed by the rebels.
A brief truce collapsed over the weekend, prompting Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov to order a resumption of an “anti-terrorist” offensive to flush the militants out.
Also yesterday, Ukrainian special forces seized back control of the town hall in the southeastern port city of Mariupol with no casualties, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
Separatist sources confirmed the loss of the building in the port city, whose population is nearly 500,000.
And an army base in the eastern town of Artemivsk overnight repelled an attack by heavily-armed rebels using machine-guns and grenades, the interior and defence ministries said. One soldier was wounded.
It was the worst violence to erupt in Ukraine since the signing the Geneva accord a week ago.
Putin called the armed offensive a crime.
“If Kiev has really begun to use the army against the country’s population ... that is a very serious crime against its own people,” he said.
He warned of “consequences, including for our intergovernmental relations”.
Russia, which has an estimated 40,000 troops massed on Ukraine’s border, has already threatened to respond as it did when it invaded Georgia in 2008 if it sees its interests in Ukraine attacked.
Shortly after Putin spoke, Russia’s defence ministry announced new military “exercises” near the border in response to the Ukrainian military operations.
Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukraine had mobilised 11,000 troops, 160 tanks and gangs of extremists “against peaceful civilians”.
“If this war machine is not stopped today, then it will lead to a large number of dead and wounded,” he said, as Moscow ordered tactical battalions among its estimated 40,000 troops massed on Ukraine’s border to conduct a new “exercise” in response to the offensive.
The show of force came a day after Moscow said it would respond as it did in Georgia in 2008, if its interests in Ukraine were attacked.
Russia sent troops into South Ossetia in August 2008 after then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili sought to re-establish control over the breakaway region.
But Ukraine’s President Turchynov vowed to see through the military operation, telling Russia to “stop interfering” in the former Soviet republic, and declaring that Kiev would not yield to “the terrorist threat”.
US President Barack Obama accused Russia yesterday of not abiding by the Geneva deal and warned more sanctions could be imposed within days.
“We continue to see malicious, armed men taking over buildings, harassing folks who are disagreeing with them, destabilising the region and we haven’t seen Russia step out and discouraging it,” he said during a trip to Japan.
Russia, though, claims Washington and the Ukrainian government are reneging on their responsibilities, despite Kiev vowing to give an amnesty to the rebels, protect the Russian language and decentralise power.
While Obama has ruled out sending US or Nato forces into Ukraine, Washington has begun deploying 600 US troops to boost Nato’s defences in nearby eastern European states.
France said it was also sending four fighter jets to Nato air patrols over the Baltics.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States and the European Union yesterday of trying to stage “an operation to unconstitutionally change the regime”.
“They are trying to use Ukraine as a pawn in a geopolitical game,” he said.
The Ukrainian government announced its renewed offensive against the rebels after the body of an abducted local politician who belonged to Turchynov’s party was found weighted down in a river near Slaviansk.
Volodymyr Rybak’s funeral was held yesterday in his home town of Horlivka. His wife and friends wept before his body, which was covered in flowers, before prayers were said and it was taken for burial.
Turchynov said Rybak had been “brutally tortured” and blamed the rebels, while his wife said he had been stabbed multiple times.
A Ukrainian soldier takes up a position at a checkpoint set on fire and left by pro-Russian separatists near Slaviansk.
