Tens of thousands ‘will die unless Russia is stopped’
President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of resisting a peace settlement, reports Ben Hoyle from Mariupol.
A barrel of a T-72 tank is seen with a flag of the DNR (Donetsk People’s Republic) in the southern coastal town of Novoazovsk. Ukraine warned yesterday that tens of thousands of people would die in a conflict already raging with Russia ‘‘the like of which Europe has not seen since the Second World War’’.
As negotiations between Kiev, Moscow and the rebel separatists began in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of ‘‘direct and undisguised aggression’’ toward his country which, he said, had enabled pro-Russian rebels spectacularly to reverse the tide of the fighting in the east of the country in the past week.
A counter-offensive on several fronts by the separatist insurgency has inflicted a series of heavy defeats on Ukrainian troops and proKiev volunteer battalions; a development that Kiev, Nato and western governments say would have been possible only with direct Russian military involvement.
In the latest of those, Ukrainian forces were forced yesterday to surrender the airport at Luhansk, where a military spokesman said they had come under attack from Russian tanks.
The separatist insurgency in east Ukraine erupted in April, when armed men seized towns and strategic sites across the region.
It came after the annexation by Russia of Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula, in March, despite an international outcry. Moscow has consistently denied any involvement in the revolt in east Ukraine.
Government forces suffered heavy casualties in recent days after becoming encircled at the town of Ilovaysk, and were driven back from Novoazovsk, on the coast road to Mariupol, last week.
There were reports yesterday of fighting at Donetsk airport, which the Ukrainian army has held for all but a few hours of the five-month conflict.
Officials said that nearly 700 Ukrainian soldiers have been taken prisoner since the rebel counteroffensive began.
Valeriy Geletey, Ukraine’s defence minister, wrote in a Facebook post: ‘‘A great war has arrived at our doorstep the likes of which Europe has not seen since the Second World War. Unfortunately, the losses in such a war will be measured not in the hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands.’’
He said that ‘‘hundreds of Russian soldiers and officers have permanently entered Ukraine’s black earth region’’ to shore up rebels who had, effectively, been defeated. He added: ‘‘Ukraine has no plans to surrender.’’
With their negotiating positions strengthened by the recent battlefield gains, the Kremlin and the rebels both indicated that they were ready for a political settlement.
President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of resisting a peace settlement.
‘‘The current Kiev leadership does not want to carry out a substantive political dialogue with the east of its country,’’ he said on a visit to Siberia. In Moscow, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, ruled out a Russian ‘‘military intervention’’ in Ukraine and said that he was counting on the Minsk talks to agree on an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. However, the talks were adjourned after several hours until Friday.
Rebel representatives had told Russian media that they had dropped their demand for full independence and now aspired to a ‘‘special status’’ for their regions within Ukraine.
They expected amnesty from prosecution, responsibility for their regions’ security and a settlement that would ‘‘take into consideration the necessity of deepening economic integration with Russia’’.
How that could work with Ukraine’s stated commitment to closer economic ties with the European Union was unclear.
British Prime Minister David Cameron had accused Russia of attempting to coerce Ukraine into policy changes, and warned that it would have a ‘‘radically different’’ relationship with the rest of the world if it did not change course.