Ukraine says it is launching counteroffensive; troops said to surround Slovyansk
Ukrainian troops secure airfield as operations against pro-Russian militants begin
(about 5 hours later)
DONETSK, Ukraine—The Ukrainian government said its forces had repelled an assault by pro-Russian militiamen at a military airfield, hours after announcing the start of a staged counteroffensive Tuesday to reclaim control of the eastern part of the country.
DONETSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military on Tuesday secured an airfield threatened by Russian sympathizers, signaling the start of a campaign to counter militants who have stormed official buildings in at least 10 eastern cities.
Facing mounting pressure to act following the takeover of official buildings by pro-Russian separatists in at least nine cities in the restive east, acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said that a counterterrorism operation began in the northern Donetsk region early Tuesday.
After days of a cautious response and empty ultimatums, the government’s deployment of troops on Tuesday could signal an escalation of the crisis, which is playing out much like the events that led to Crimea’s annexation by Russia early this year.
Eyewitnesses said Ukrainian troops, backed by armored personnel carriers and two helicopters, were surrounding the city of Slovyansk, where pro-Russian activists have erected roadblocks and have effectively exercised control since Saturday.
Officials in Moscow have sternly warned against using force to deter what they say are “self-defenders” who are acting to protect the interests of ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s east. Too strong a response, officials in Kiev and Western capitals have wagered, could be used by Russia as a pretext to send its troops spilling over the border.
Speaking in parliament later Tuesday, Turchynov said Ukrainian forces had successfully taken the airfield in Kramatorsk, a city of about 200,000 people 10 miles south of Slovyansk. But there were reports of an ongoing clash in the area, and it remained unclear whether the Ukrainian military was still engaging Russian loyalists there.
Fanning those fears ahead of four-party talks set to start within 48 hours in Geneva, Russia on Tuesday slammed the Ukrainian government for waging “war” against its own people. In a sharply worded statement, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow accused Kiev of violently suppressing peaceful protests “with complete disregard for the legitimate interests of the population in the south east” of Ukraine.
Confirming the start of an operation in the region, Turchynov said: “Soon there will be no terrorists left in Donetsk or any other region [in Ukraine]. They will sit in prison, their proper place.”
The White House stood by Ukraine’s response.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that Ukraine was descending into civil war.
“The Ukrainian government has a responsibility to provide law and order, and these provocations in eastern Ukraine are creating a situation in which the government has to respond,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
According to Russian state television, between four and 11 people were killed when Ukrainian troops stormed the Kramatorsk airfield and opened fire on “self-defense fighters” guarding it.
The government in Kiev appeared to show a new if tempered willingness to back up its pledge in recent days to restore order. On Tuesday, witnesses reported heavy gunfire as a Ukrainian jet tried to land at an airfield in Kramatorsk, a city 10 miles south of Slovyansk, where pro-Russian forces first set up roadblocks Saturday.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a pro-Russian militiaman as saying that though Ukrainian troops seized the airfield, they had not taken Kramatorsk. “We have, in fact, been pushed out of the airport, but the town is under our control,” the unidentified militiaman told the agency. “We won’t let anyone in.”
Shortly afterward, Ukrainian troops were ferried to the site by helicopter, landed and encountered a hostile reception by protesters. What followed, officials and witnesses said, was a tense standoff in which the troops repeatedly opened fire to push protesters back beyond the perimeter fences.
Another pro-Russian militant claimed that fighters from Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist Right Sector movement and foreign mercenaries were involved in storming the airfield, Interfax reported.
It remained unclear whether the area was fully or temporarily secured. But acting President Oleksandr Turchynov described the move as part of a staged “counterterrorism operation” against pro-Russian separatists in the northern part of the Donetsk region.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian officials reported a buildup of their forces not far from Izyum, a city near the border of Kharkiv and Donetsk provinces in the east. Izyum is 32 miles northwest of Slovyansk, which Ukrainian forces failed to retake from well-armed pro-Russian activists on Sunday.
“Soon there will be no terrorists left in Donetsk or any other region,” Turchynov vowed in parliament on Tuesday. “They will sit in prison, their proper place.”
An Izyum official involved in the mobilization and who asked not to be named said the city was being used as a fueling and feeding station for Ukrainian troops, who began arriving over the weekend and were taking up positions outside the city’s limits.
Stanislav Rechinsky, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, told reporters in Kiev that there had been no fatalities during the operation by special Ukrainian forces at the airfield. Witnesses said that crowds of pro-Russian activists had roughed up a commander in the area who approached them after the airfield was supposed to be secured and that they remained on the airfield’s edge, hurling verbal abuse at military officials.
Nevertheless, the government in Kiev remained in a tight spot.
“The aim of the operation was to avoid casualties among our people, and it is also desirable to save the lives of the separatists, because some of them are our citizens,” Rechinsky said.
Ultimatums issued by the government to pro-Russian activists to surrender have been ignored, and the limited operation in the seized town of Slovyansk ended after a Ukrainian security officer was killed.
In contrast to Ukraine’s official statements, however, Russian state television reported that between four and 11 people had been killed in the operation. Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a pro-Russian militiaman as saying that fighters from Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist Right Sector movement and foreign mercenaries were involved in storming the airfield.
In the meantime, alarm has surged over what appears to be a stealth operation by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’s east to repeat the seizure last month of Crimea, which then seceded from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation.
The divergent accounts illustrated the gap between Kiev and Moscow as the crisis appeared to be deepening.
There is deep uncertainty over the technical ability of Ukraine's underfunded and demoralized military to respond to pro-Russian forces, some of whom are heavily armed. At the same time, the government was balancing calls for action against the possibility that too strong a response could prompt Russian troops stationed just across the border to intervene more directly.
Ukrainian troops gather
“A counterterrorism operation was launched in the north of Donetsk region,” Turchynov told parliament on Tuesday. “But it will go on gradually, responsibly and prudently. Once again I emphasize that these actions are meant for the protection of Ukrainian citizens, stopping terror, criminality and attempts to break our country into pieces.”
On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials and witnesses reported an ongoing buildup of their forces not far from Izyum, a city near the border of Kharkiv and Donetsk provinces in the east. Izyum is 32 miles northwest of Slovyansk, which Ukrainian forces failed to retake from well-armed pro-Russian activists Sunday in an operation that left two people dead.
In Donetsk, Mayor Alexander Lukyanchenko pleaded with pro-Russian activists not to make good on a threat to storm the city council offices Tuesday. “If the city authorities are paralyzed, it would be to the detriment of all inhabitants of the city,” he told a news conference.
An Izyum official involved in the mobilization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the city was being used as a fueling and feeding station for Ukrainian troops, who began arriving over the weekend and were taking up positions outside the city limits.
Underscoring the pressure from Russia, Medvedev on Tuesday slammed the interim government in Kiev, saying it has fallen into a trap of its own making.
Journalists reported seeing columns of armored personnel carriers and buses moving toward Slovyansk. But Rechinsky denied that the Ukrainian military had moved into the city, suggesting that the government remained leery of a full-on confrontation with pro-Russian forces, some of whom are heavily armed with weapons similar or identical to those used by the Russian military. Instead, the government focused on further attempts to defuse the situation in Slovyansk and elsewhere through negotiations.
“The country is on the brink of a civil war. It’s very sad,” Medvedev said on his Facebook page. He blamed the unrest on the new authorities in Kiev, who he charged had seized power “illegally” in a revolution in February and unleashed a wave of violence that they were now unable to control.
“In Slovyansk, there is no equipment, no troops, although there are many panicked reports in the media about the movement of tanks, armored personnel carriers and so on,” Rechinsky said.
“The illegal rulers are trying to restore the order they cynically trampled on when they participated in an armed uprising,” he wrote. “They are falling into their own trap.”
In recent days, Turchynov first vowed to rout the protesters by force, then held out the possibility of a referendum to decide Ukraine’s fate. But so far, nothing has appeared to move the militants to surrender.
Defiant pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine pushed the country to the brink of war or dissolution Monday, expanding their hold while the acting president failed to make headway in trying to end the crisis.
There is deep uncertainty about the technical ability of Ukraine’s underfunded and demoralized military to respond to pro-Russian forces, who Ukrainian officials say are being guided and perhaps supplied by Russian military commanders.
In a nation of 44 million, it became clear that a few hundred men, operating on the eastern fringes of the country with guns and unmarked uniforms, have brought Ukraine to a deeply dangerous juncture.
‘Responsibly and prudently’
After an ultimatum to the militants was ignored, Turchynov first vowed to rout them by force, then held out the offer of a referendum to decide Ukraine’s fate, then proposed a peacekeeping intervention by the United Nations.
Turchynov told parliament on Tuesday that the effort to quell the rebellion in the east would “go on gradually, responsibly and prudently.” He pledged that there would be no civil war, and he emphasized “that these actions are meant for the protection of Ukrainian citizens, stopping terror, criminality and attempts to break our country into pieces.”
Nothing Turchynov said moved the pro-Russian forces, who seized another police station in another small town, Horlivka.
The militants represent a minority in eastern Ukraine, but the government in Kiev is also combating a much broader sense of skepticism in the east, with criticism mounting over officials’ handling of the economy in particular. Driving home that point, the central bank on Tuesday was forced to jack up interest rates in an effort to stem a precipitous fall in the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia.
Medvedev said he was sorry for the people of Ukraine who had become “hostages of untalented politicians whom they did not elect and irresponsible radicals who had replaced the police and army.”
Residents in Donetsk — where pro-Russian forces have seized the regional administrative office and are patrolling the area day and night — have also lashed out at government plans to slash gas subsidies to meet the demands of a desperately needed $18 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Claiming that “every cloud has a silver lining,” Medvedev said that many Ukrainians had lost faith in the interim government and realized that the only way to create a “fair society” was with a legal mandate where people were able to decide their own future.
“Do they think we are rich?” asked Marina Aleksandrovna, a 50-year-old cleaning woman. “I am not an economist or a politician, but I can tell you that people are not having to deal with these problems in Russia.”
That goal should be achieved “without imposters, nationalists or bandits and without tanks, APCs or secret visits by the director of the CIA,” he said.
Isabel Gorst in Moscow contributed to this report.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Kiev against launching an offensive in southeastern Ukraine, an action it said would derail four-party international talks in Geneva aimed at resolving the crisis. Officials from the United States, European Union, Russia and Ukraine are expected to meet in Geneva on Thursday.
“If force is used in southeastern Ukraine, the chances of holding the Geneva meeting would be undermined,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry and European leaders are promising more sanctions, on top of those imposed on Russia over its role in Crimea. The State Department circulated a document assailing what it called “Russian Fiction: The Sequel. Ten More False Claims about Ukraine.”
In seeking to contradict assertions from Moscow, the American document says, among other things, that Russian agents are active in eastern Ukraine; that separatists there do not enjoy broad popular support; that Russian-speakers are not under threat; and the new government in Kiev is not led by right-wing nationalists and fascists.
The mood was tense in Donetsk, a city of nearly 1 million, where many residents stayed inside after dark Monday. Pro-Russian activists took over the regional administrative offices last week, and bands of masked men, including several carrying steel pipes, patrolled the barricaded entrances to the monolithic structure in the center of town.
Turchynov and other Ukrainian officials are sure that Russia is guiding the militants, who have taken over one government building after another. Russia adamantly denies it, and Lavrov said Monday it is the West’s responsibility to rein in the government in Kiev so that there are no violent attacks on the militants.
The crisis, which began to the south, in Crimea, is now focused on militants who say they represent the “People’s Republic of Donetsk.” It has brought relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point at least since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
“There can't really be any real doubt that this is something that has been planned and brought about by Russia,” the British foreign secretary, William Hague, said as he arrived in Luxembourg to meet with his European counterparts.
“I don’t think denials of Russian involvement have a shred of credibility,” Hague said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been watching the crisis with “great concern” and has received “many appeals, addressed personally to Putin, asking to help in this or that way and asking to intervene in this or that way,” a presidential spokesman said.
Officials at the Pentagon on Monday protested what they described as a provocative flyover by a Russian attack aircraft that flew at close range for 90 minutes over a U.S. Navy ship that had been sent into the Black Sea.
Englund and Gorst reported from Moscow. Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
