Ukraine rebels down military plane, 49 killed

AFP/LuhanskUkraine’s new Western-backed leader has vowed to strike back at pro-Russian rebels who killed 49 troops by downing a military plane in the deadliest attack against federal forces in the two-month insurgency.The attack came hours before top Moscow and Kiev officials were due to meet in the Ukrainian capital for 11th-hour gas negotiations aimed at averting an imminent cut in Russian supplies that would also affect large swathes of Europe.The early morning downing in the rebel stronghold city of Luhansk (also spelled Lugansk) came a day after Ukrainian forces notched their biggest success in a deadly campaign to reunify the splintered nation by reclaiming control of the strategic southeastern industrial port of Mariupol.The United States on Friday accused Russia of helping in the insurgency by sending tanks and rocket launchers to the pro-Moscow rebels – a charge the Kremlin firmly denied.A Luhansk rebel commander who showed off pieces of the Il-76 transporter’s charred debris in a wheat field a dozen kilometres outside the Luhansk airport said that five militants shot down the plane using machineguns.The tall and bulky commander – referred to by his unit as Mudzhakhed (Sacred Fighter) – brandished a Kalashnikov rifle while listing the mostly Russian-speaking region’s grievances against the new more nationalist leaders in Kiev.“They brought machineguns and ammunition,” Mudzhakhed said. “We do not like people telling us what to do.”Mudzhakhed said that the plane tried to dump fuel after the rebels hit its engines. The heavy transporter crashed on its second landing approach.Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signalled an imminent intensification of the offensive he had pledged to end just days after his May 25 election by vowing to punish the guilty and deal the separatists “an adequate response”.Federal forces suffered still more casualties yesterday when three border guards were killed and four wounded after being ambushed in Mariupol.German Chancellor Angel Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said that they had expressed “extreme concern” over the incident in a joint phone conversation with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.Merkel and Hollande “stressed the importance of rapidly reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine”, they said in a joint statement released in Paris.An AFP correspondent heard heavy fighting and a series of loud explosions in the hours preceding the 1am downing in Luhansk – a city of 400,000 lying just 25km west of the Russian border.“They were flying here to kill people. Those bastards are bombing us,” a man named Roman said outside the headquarters of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic”. “They knew where they were flying and they were warned. We are the people of Luhansk. Ukraine does not exist anymore.”The industrial centre – under effective rebel control since the eastern uprising began in early April – has witnessed brazen attacks on border guard units by fighters from strife-torn Russian regions such as Dagestan and Chechnya.Ukrainian forces managed to hold on to its airport and use it to rotate equipment and troops serving in the campaign.But they have also been forced to repel an increasingly frequent series of raids on the air hub by gunmen who had also briefly seized the main international airport in rebel-held Donetsk at the end of May.The eastern insurgency is now known to have claimed at least 320 lives of civilians and fighters on both sides.Poroshenko’s troubles have been compounded by the threat of Ukraine being cut off from economically vital Russian gas shipments as early as tomorrow morning because of a bitter price dispute.Ukraine receives half its gas supplies from Russia and transports 15^ of the fuel consumed in Europe.Moscow had nearly doubled the price it charges Kiev for the fuel in the wake of the February ouster of a Kremlin-backed president.The head of Ukraine’s state energy firm said Kiev was ready to make a $1.95bn (1.45bn euro) payment demanded by Moscow by tomorrow morning if Russia agreed to cut its price to $326 from $485.50 for 1,000cu m of gas.Russia had called a price of $385 per 1,000c m its final offer.Meanwhile, the United States on Friday accused Russia of sending tanks and rocket launchers to the rebels in the wake of Western-backed tycoon Poroshenko’s election victory.