Ukrainian government forces yesterday warned separatists in the eastern town of Donetsk that a plan was now in place to take back the territory they occupy, but defiant rebels reported a steady flow of new recruits who were ready to fight.

The Ukrainian military pushed the rebels out of their best-fortified stronghold in the town of Slaviansk on Saturday, but they have regrouped for a stand in Donetsk, a city of nearly a million people. Rebels also still control strategic buildings in Luhansk near the Russian border.

There will be no street fighting in Donetsk

Separatists said on Tuesday that Igor Strelkov, a Russian military officer from Mos-cow who until the weekend led rebels in Slaviansk, had assumed command of the “defence of Donetsk”.

President Petro Poroshenko has ruled out using air strikes and artillery that might endanger civilians and said on Tuesday night: “There will be no street fighting in Donetsk.”

But the government says it has a plan to retake Donetsk and Luhansk. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko spelled out the threat yesterday, saying: “There’s a plan to liberate Ukrainian territory from the terrorists, and it doesn’t depend on the readiness or the unreadiness of Strelkov and his underlings to defend, as they call it, the Donbass.”

But separatists in charge of a ‘mobilisation’ centre for the self-proclaimed ‘people’s republic’ said yesterday that recruitment of new fighters was continuing at a pace since Strelkov made an appeal for fresh recruits on Tuesday.