Ukraine army launches assault on rebel stronghold

Ukrainian forces launched its first major assault on the pro-Russian stronghold in the eastern city of Slovyansk on Friday.

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army launched its first major assault on a rebel stronghold in the east of the country on Friday, provoking the heaviest fighting since a pro-Russian uprising began a month ago. Two military helicopters were shot down, and at least three people were reported killed.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin called the offensive a “criminal” act and said it had “effectively destroyed the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreements” reached on April 17 and intended to defuse the crisis. Under the accord, signed by Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union, separatists were supposed to lay down their arms and vacate government buildings they have occupied in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border with Ukraine, and Friday’s developments raised the risks of a Russian military response. Russian officials have said they would intervene in Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians. Putin on Friday was “closely following developments in southeast Ukraine,” the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian troops attacked the rebel stronghold of Slovyansk at dawn, meeting heavy resistance from pro-Russian separatists. After three or four hours of clashes, they had taken control of checkpoints on the main roads in and out of the city, but the center of Slovyansk remained in rebel hands. The fighting subsided by the afternoon.

Two Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopters were shot down and two crew members killed, the Defense Ministry said. One pilot was captured by the rebels and transferred to a local hospital, medics told local media. Rebels said one of their fighters was killed.

The ministry said a third helicopter, an Mi-8 transport reportedly carrying medics, was also hit and a service member wounded.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the army attacked at 4:30 a.m. local time and came under heavy fire from what he called “terrorists” and “professional mercenaries,” as it attempted to take the city.

“Against Ukraine’s special forces, terrorists used heavy fire, including grenade launchers and antiaircraft rocket launchers,” he posted on his Facebook page. “It is the real battle with professional mercenaries.”

The Ukrainian Security Service said its fighters were facing “highly skilled foreign military men” in Slovyansk. It said one of the helicopters was shot down with a surface-to-air missile, which it said undercut Russia’s claims that the city is under the control of civilians who bought arms in “hunting stores.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt agreed. “Ukrainian helicopters shot down in Slovyansk. Some elderly ladies bought some RPGs or missiles at the local grocery store, I assume,” he posted on Twitter.

In Washington, the Ukrainian crisis was expected to dominate talks Friday between President Obama and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The European Union says it is watching the latest developments in eastern Ukraine with growing concern, and NATO has said it must view Russia as an adversary in light of apparent efforts to destabilize the region following its annexation of Crimea in March. But Western leaders have made it clear they have no intention of engaging Russia militarily over Ukraine.

Avakov said the separatists fired from residential apartment buildings because they knew the army was under orders not to shoot at such buildings.

Ukraine’s Security Service said the army took control of 10 checkpoints around Slovyansk and half of the city’s “territory,” but rebels told Russian media that the latter claim was untrue.

Ukrainian troops in armored personnel carriers were stationed on the main roads leading into Slovyansk, and the army also seized a television tower on a hill on the outskirts of the city. But some other checkpoints closer to the city were still manned by rebels, and the city center was under rebel control. The streets of Slovyansk were largely deserted in late morning, with armed men, in a mixture of camouflage and ordinary civilian clothes, manning barricades. Some wore balaclavas over their faces.

Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the insurgency-appointed mayor of Slovyansk, said rebels shot down two helicopters, killing one pilot and capturing the other, according to the Associated Press.

In a video message posted on the Internet, Ponomarev urged women, children and senior citizens to remain in their homes but asked men with guns “to render all possible assistance.”

“We will defend the city. We will win,” he said.

A spokesman for the military wing of the pro-Russian forces, who identified himself only as Vladislav, said fighting broke out at several points around the city and that Ukrainian troops made incursions into the city itself, AP reported.

At one burning barricade manned by rebels, a fighter who gave his name as Thunder said he had two children and a pregnant wife at home. “I believe the Russian army will be here soon,” he said. “It is time.”

Ukraine’s assault began a day after Putin demanded that the government in Kiev withdraw all military units from the southeast of the country. It also came a day after the International Monetary Fund warned that it would have to redesign a $17 billion bailout of Ukraine if the government lost control of eastern Ukraine, its industrial heartland.

Ukraine accuses Russia of financing and arming the separatists, who have seized government buildings across the east of the country and have vowed to hold a referendum on independence on May 11. Russia denies the charge.

Residents of Slovyansk used tires, sandbags and logs to barricade their neighborhoods, and some complained that the Ukrainian army was endangering their lives.

In the nearby town of Kramatorsk, militiamen blocked roads with trolley cars and buses in an attempt to prevent the army from entering, while residents of the village of Andreevskoe linked arms to form a human chain to keep troops out, the regional administration said in a statement.

“We should be evacuated, but Kiev thinks of us as terrorists,” said Natalye Botte, a 26-year-old woman who left her home to visit a local kiosk and find out what was happening. “They fly above our heads shooting all day, but there is an orphanage here full of kids, and we have children at home.”

She said she had heard shooting between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time, and two loud explosions, adding that her 2-year-old girl had been scared and unable to sleep. A nearby checkpoint was now controlled by the Ukrainian army.

Ukraine’s internal security service accused separatist leaders of ordering their fighters to collect civilians at checkpoints and in buildings to be used as “human shields.”

“The militants also fired at the helicopter of Ministry of Emergency, which arrived on the scene with a team of doctors to provide assistance and evacuation, and wounded one of the doctors,” the security service said in a statement.

Ukraine’s acting president said this week that police were “helpless” to prevent pro-Russian separatists from taking control of large parts of eastern Ukraine. Although the Kiev government announced it had launched an “anti-terrorist” operation in early April, it has been slow to act until now, partly for fear of provoking a Russian intervention in response.

Rebels in Slovyansk have taken several hostages, including journalists and seven members of a European security monitoring organization. Interior Minister Avakov said the objective of Friday’s operation was to free the hostages, force rebels to lay down their arms, release administrative buildings from their control, and restore the normal functioning of the city administration.

Putin on Thursday sent a special envoy, Vladimir Lukin, to eastern Ukraine to negotiate with the separatists who have taken the seven international observers hostage, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news service. That mission was “under threat” on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Lukin, Russia’s human rights commissioner, was also Putin’s special envoy to Kiev in February during negotiations before Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the country in the face of popular protests.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said English-speaking foreigners were seen among the Ukrainian forces mounting the assault on Slovyansk on Friday, echoing its previous charges that U.S. contractors were involved in Ukraine’s response to the unrest in the east.

“The United States and the E.U. are taking on a huge responsibility in cutting of the road to a peaceful resolution of the crisis,” the Foreign Ministry said.

 

 

Denyer reported from Donetsk, Ukraine. Birnbaum reported from Moscow.

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