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Rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine vowed Friday to extend their advances against government troops and boycott further peace talks despite a diplomatic push to implement a long-ignored cease-fire.
But with Russia, the rebels’ main backer, joining the West in calling for more talks, it wasn’t clear what the latest separatist claims would mean on the ground. Both sides have often exaggerated their military ambitions in public statements.
Ukrainian officials said Thursday that their forces have retreated from the main portion of the airport at Donetsk, a key turning point in an eight-month battle with Russian separatist forces that has turned the facility into a hulk of twisted metal and shattered glass.
“Taking into account the danger and in order to save lives, … it was decided yesterday to move out of the terminal’s territory and to the new lines,” Vladyslav Seleznyov, spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said at a briefing.
Russia has sent more troops into Ukraine than at any time since the crisis began, deploying 9,000 soldiers inside its neighbour, according to the Ukrainian leader.
Petro Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine, said Russia had also dispatched 500 tanks and other armoured vehicles over the border. A total of five Russian infantry battalions are now believed to be inside eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military says it went to the aid of soldiers besieged in Donetsk airport
Observers in eastern Ukraine have warned of a serious deterioration in security as fighting intensifies in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
This aerial view shot by a drone shows the outline of an airplane in the snow at the Sergey Prokofiev International Airport damaged by shelling during fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, yesterday. Photo: Reuters
Ukrainian troops recaptured almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine they had lost to separatists in recent weeks, even as thousands gathered in Kiev for a state-sponsored peace march yesterday.
The offensive brought fighting close to the industrial city of Donetsk itself, the centre of a pro-Russian rebellion, while shelling intensified in other parts of the region which are known as the “Donbass”.