Fighting raged in eastern Ukraine yesterday despite European efforts to resurrect a stillborn ceasefire, a day after pro-Russian separatists spurned the truce by forcing thousands of government troops out of a strategic town.
Western nations are refusing to give up on a peace deal brokered by France and Germany last week even though the rebels disavowed it to seize the important railway hub of Debaltseve.
Shelling continued near that town yesterday, and local officials in government-held territory said rebels had also fired mortar bombs at another town further south. Kiev fears they are massing for an assault near the major port of Mariupol.
Thousands of weary and demoralised soldiers withdrew from Debaltseve on Wednesday in one of the worst defeats suffered by Kiev during 10 months of fighting in which more than 5,000 people have been killed.
European and US officials have expressed hope that the ceasefire will hold now that the rebels, fighting for territory Russian President Vladimir Putin has called “New Russia”, have achieved their immediate goal of taking Debaltseve. But Reuters correspondents outside the rebel-held town of Vuhlehirsk said artillery shells were still falling on nearby Debaltseve. Reporters in the rebel stronghold of Donestsk said there was also shelling in the area.
The rebels are bringing up reserves
The Kiev government’s biggest fear is of a rebel assault on Mariupol, a port of 500,000 people and by far the biggest government-held city in the two rebellious eastern provinces.
“Right now there are mortar attacks on Shyrokine,” a military spokesman said, referring to a village about 30 km east of Mariupol, along the coast of the Sea of Azov.
“The rebels are bringing up reserves,” the spokesman said.
Wednesday’s withdrawal was a humiliating defeat for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who faces an economic crisis as well as the war. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said 13 servicemen were killed and 157 wounded during the withdrawal and a further 82 were still missing. Ninety-three were taken prisoner.
“Along the entire way we were blanketed with shots, wherever there were trees they fired at us from machine guns and grenade launchers. They used everything,” , a soldier from Ukraine’s 30th brigade, said in Artemivsk, a government-held town north of Debaltseve where the soldiers assembled after they withdrew.
Some blamed commanders for leaving them trapped in the besieged town after it became impossible to resupply it.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said more than half a tonne of “deadly metal, in the shape of rocket shells, mortar, anti-tank rockets and other hardware, came down on the head of every soldier on average every day” from the start of the ceasefire on Sunday until the withdrawal.
The leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia agreed in a telephone call to make a new attempt to enforce the ceasefire and ensure other terms of the deal are implemented. The White House said it was “deeply troubled” by reports of fighting and Nato’s top military commander, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, said he did not think the truce had ever even begun.
“It is a ceasefire in name only,” Breedlove said.
Western countries say Russia is behind the rebel advance, having deployed thousands of troops with advanced weaponry into eastern Ukraine to fight on the separatists’ behalf. Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission, said “Russia is looking to redraw Europe’s 21st century borders by force”.
Moscow dismissed a call by Ukraine for UN peacekeepers to come to east Ukraine. Russia said the Minsk agreements should be the basis for peace, not peacekeepers.