Ukrainian rebels are receiving new armoured vehicles and
fighters trained in Russia, with which they plan to launch a major
counter-offensive against government forces, a separatist leader said in
a video released on Saturday.
The four-month conflict in eastern Ukraine has reached a critical
phase, with Kiev and Western governments watching nervously to see if
Russia will intervene in support of the increasingly besieged rebels -
an intention Moscow denies.
Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed
Donetsk People's Republic, said the rebels were in the process of
receiving some 150 armoured vehicles, including 30 tanks, and 1,200
fighters who he said had spent four months training in Russia.
"They are joining at the most crucial moment," he said in a video
recorded on Friday. He did not specify where the vehicles would come
from.
Moscow has come under heavy Western sanctions over its annexation
of Ukraine's Crimea and accusations it is supporting separatists in east
Ukraine with fighters, arms and funds. Russia denies those charges.
In a sign of concern at the latest rebel comments, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko agreed
in a phone call on Saturday that deliveries of weapons to separatists
in Ukraine must stop and a ceasefire must be achieved, a German
government spokesman said.
The risk of outright war between the two most powerful former
Soviet states was highlighted on Friday when Ukraine said it partially
destroyed an armoured column that had crossed the border from Russia.
The report triggered a sell-off in global shares.
But Moscow made no threat of retaliation, instead saying it was a
"fantasy" that its armoured vehicles had entered its neighbour's
territory.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden also spoke to Poroshenko on Saturday,
and the White House said: "The two leaders agreed that Russia's sending
military columns across the border into Ukraine and its continued
provision of advanced weapons to the separatists was inconsistent with
any desire to improve the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin called on NATO to provide military support for Ukrainian troops.
The rebels, who have ceded ground to government forces in recent
weeks, have been promising a counter-offensive for several days but have
yet to launch one.
Ukrainian native Zakharchenko took over from Russian citizen
Alexander Borodai last week and his combative comments will probably
dash hopes that changes at the top of the rebel leadership might signal
willingness to end hostilities.
CONVOY WAITS
Adding to the tensions, Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads
for days over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks carrying water, food and
medicine, which remained about 20 km (12 miles) from the Ukrainian
border, unmoved since Friday.
Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross said
most procedures had been agreed by Russia and Ukraine but the two sides
still needed to figure out how to provide security before the convoy
moves ahead under the ICRC's aegis. It was not clear when a deal on
security could be agreed.
Russia says it is a purely humanitarian mission in support of
civilians in areas hit by the conflict, but Ukraine is concerned it
could serve as a Trojan Horse to infiltrate military supplies or create a
pretext for armed intervention.
The crisis has dragged relations between Russia and the West to
their lowest point since the Cold War and set off a round of trade
restrictions that are hurting struggling economies in both Russia and
Europe. The United Nations said this week that an estimated 2,086 people
had been killed, with nearly 5,000 wounded.
The Finnish President, Sauli Niinisto, held talks in Kiev with
Poroshenko, a day after discussing how to settle the crisis with Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
"I do not see a great risk of an outright war," Niinisto said. "My
hopefulness is based on the fact that communication is open, at least by
a crack."
France said a meeting of Ukrainian, Russian, German and French
foreign ministers scheduled in Berlin on Sunday could be a first step
towards a peace summit.
A rebel Internet news outlet said on Saturday that separatist
fighters had killed 30 members of a Ukrainian government battalion in
fighting in Luhansk province, a rebel-held area of eastern Ukraine
adjacent to the Russian border.
A Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, contradicted the
rebel assertions. He said three Ukrainian servicemen had been killed
over the past 24 hours. Ukrainian security forces had spotted Russian
drones and a helicopter crossing illegally into Ukraine's airspace,
Lysenko told a news briefing.
He denied Kiev's forces were firing artillery on Donetsk, one of
two rebel strongholds in the east, where a Reuters reporter said
explosions were audible in the city centre on Saturday. The Donetsk city
administration said four people were killed in shelling that destroyed
homes and set several buildings on fire.
MOMENTUM WITH THE ARMY
The momentum on the ground is with the Ukrainian forces, who have
pushed the separatists out of large swathes of territory and nearly
encircled them in Donetsk and Luhansk. Kiev says it now controls the
road linking the two cities.
Russia says the Ukrainian offensive is causing a humanitarian
catastrophe for the civilian population in the two cities. It accuses
Kiev's forces of indiscriminately using heavy weapons in residential
areas, an allegation Ukraine denies.
In the past week, three senior rebel leaders have been removed from
their posts, pointing to mounting disagreement over how to turn the
tide of the fighting back in their favour.
Lysenko, the Ukrainian military spokesman, said he had reports of
rebel fighters abandoning their posts in Luhansk, and preparing to leave
Donetsk and seek safe haven in Russia.
"A mood of panic is spreading and rebels are trying to leave through the small gaps that remain," he said.
In Donetsk, the red, blue and black flag of separatists was flying
on a pole in front of the headquarters. Ten people armed with
Kalashnikov rifles were standing on guard outside the main entrance in
mismatched camouflage.
"Why should we flee? People are still coming and filling our ranks.
Those who have lost their houses to Ukrainian shelling, what else would
they do but fight back?," said a fighter who gave his name as
Communist.
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