This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/world/europe/ukraine-crisis.html

The article has changed 13 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 10 Version 11
Ukraine’s Push East Falters as Militants Seize Army Vehicles Ukraine Push Against Rebels Grinds to Halt
(about 7 hours later)
SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — A highly publicized Ukrainian Army operation to retake control of Slovyansk and other eastern cities from pro-Russia insurgents appeared to falter badly on Wednesday, with one column of armored vehicles abandoned to militant separatists and another ground to a halt by unarmed protesters blocking its path. SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — A military operation that the Ukrainian government said would confront pro-Russian militants in the east of the country unraveled in disarray on Wednesday with the entire contingent of 21 armored vehicles that had separated into two columns surrendering or pulling back before nightfall. It was a glaring humiliation for the new government in Kiev.
The setbacks appeared to reflect new indecision and dysfunction by the interim authorities in Kiev, the capital, who have been vowing for days to end the insurrections in the restive east that they say have been instigated by Russia. The Kremlin has massed thousands of troops near Ukraine’s eastern border, raising fears that it intends to seize more Ukrainian territory, beyond its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in the south last month. Though gunshots were fired throughout the day, and continued sporadically through the evening in this town that is occupied by pro-Russian militants, it was unclear whether anybody had been wounded.
The developments in eastern Ukraine came against a backdrop of rising tensions across Europe over the Ukraine crisis. The NATO alliance said it would step up patrols along its entire eastern frontier, nearest to Russia and Ukraine. One of the armored columns stopped when a crowd of men drinking beer and women yelling taunts and insults gathered on the road before them, and later in the day its commander agreed to hand over the soldiers’ assault rifles to the very separatists they were sent to fight.
Ukrainian news media reported that pro-Russian militias had commandeered six armored personnel carriers from the Ukrainian Army and driven them to the central square here in Slovyansk, about 120 miles from the Russian border. A crowd gathered to gape at the squat tracked vehicles and at the red, white and blue flag of Russia flapping in the breeze. Another column from the same ostensibly elite unit, the 25th Dnipropetrovsk paratrooper brigade, surrendered not only its weapons but also the tracked and armored vehicles it had arrived in, letting militants park them as trophies, under a Russian flag, in a central square here.
About 100 soldiers in unmarked green uniforms, bearing no insignia but carrying professional infantry equipment, guarded the vehicles. They wore twirled around their right shoulder straps the orange and black ribbons that are a symbol of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, and now of Russia’s nationalist resurgence. Some of the soldiers had grenade launchers slung over their shoulders. A pro-Russian militant then climbed into the driver’s seat of one and spun the vehicle around on its tracks, screeching and roaring, to please the watching crowd.
Another Ukrainian armored column fared little better when its advance toward Slovyansk, which has been occupied by pro-Russian militants for days, was halted in a village to the south by a crowd blocking the road. By early afternoon, several hundred people were milling around the motionless column of 15 tracked personnel carriers, drinking beer and fraternizing with the soldiers. The events of the day underscored the weakness of the new government in Kiev entering critical talks with the United States and Russia in Geneva on Thursday over Ukraine’s future. Unable to exercise authority over their own military, officials increasingly seem powerless to contain a growing rebellion by pro-Russian militants that has spread to at least nine cities in eastern Ukraine.
Initially, the soldiers tried to clear a path by firing in the air, residents said. One of the tracked vehicles rammed an Opel car parked in the road, shoving it aside. But the crowd did not disperse, and the soldiers adopted a passive stance, turning off their vehicle engines, climbing on top of their vehicles and removing the magazines from their rifles. In a tactical error, the Ukrainian soldiers on Wednesday had no accompanying force to control the crowds that formed around their advancing units. Their task, to confront armed militants intermingled with civilians, would be extremely difficult for any conventional army, but for this group, which apparently lacked the tools and the heart to carry it out, it proved to be impossible.
“People came out of the village and stood in front of the tanks because they do not want them in their village,” said Aleksei Anikov, 33, a construction worker. He said residents supported the pro-Russian militants, and realized quickly that the Ukrainian Army would not shoot unarmed people. Just placing the conventional army forces near this darker, more insidious mix of unconventional tactics risked such a setback. “You are fulfilling criminal orders,” one local resident yelled at a Ukrainian soldier sitting on an armored vehicle.
Oleksandr Popov, a Ukrainian Army second lieutenant on the scene, said the soldiers were from a brigade of paratroopers based in Dnepropetrovsk, a major city in eastern Ukraine. He said his orders were to shoot only if fired upon, and that the column was awaiting orders on how to respond to the crowd. The soldier said he was not, and showed that he had removed the magazine from his assault rifle. “You are saying ‘Come over to the side of the people,’ ” he said. “I am a soldier. I protect the people. I won’t shoot you.”
The vehicles seized from the Ukrainian Army and driven into the central square in Slovyansk had been similarly surrounded by a crowd earlier in the day, near the town of Kramatorsk. An amateur video clip from there suggested that the Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered the vehicles to armed men in unmarked uniforms, rather than fight with them amid the crowd of civilians. The Ukrainian soldiers are seen walking away from their armored vehicles; the pro-Russian armed men are then seen entering them and driving them away, headed for Slovyansk. Ukrainian military helicopters buzzed over the scene but were of no help to the soldiers’ quandary below.
Whether this scene suggested that the Ukrainian vehicles had been taken by force or with the collusion of defecting Ukrainian troops was unclear. Either possibility, however, would signal an escalation by Russian-backed militants in eastern Ukraine. They faced not only the civilians, but behind them a force of well-armed men in unmarked green uniforms, who Western governments have said are either Russian soldiers or Russian-equipped militants. These soldiers were well armed. They carried radios and ammunition pouches. Some had rocket-propelled grenade launchers slung over their shoulders.
Kramatorsk is the town where Ukrainian paratroopers arrived on Tuesday to secure an airfield, in what was intended to be a show of force. The Ukrainian contingent that surrendered handed over their vehicles to men in unmarked green uniforms, who made their presence more public on Wednesday than it had been earlier. They drove them to the central plaza of Slovyansk, a town about 120 miles from the Russian border, and parked them there for all to see, the flags of Russia and the newly declared and wholly unrecognized People’s Republic of Donetsk flapping above them in the breeze.
The Ukrainian general in command of the military operation, Vasily Krutov, stood near armored personnel carriers outside the town on Tuesday and warned loudly that gunmen who did not surrender their weapons would be “destroyed.” In Kiev, the Ministry of Defense initially denied that the armored vehicles had been captured. Then Sergei Sobolev, the acting head of the Fatherland Party in Parliament, claimed that the armored vehicles had flown Russian flags as part of an ingenious subterfuge to get through pro-Russian crowds.
It was unclear whether the vehicles that were taken on Wednesday were from this same contingent. Ukrainian news media quoted Mr. Sobolev as saying it was a “guerrilla approach” to infiltrate separatist-controlled areas through pro-Russian civilian mobs. Rather than a disastrous setback for Ukrainians, he said the appearance of Ukrainian military vehicles flying Russian flags was a “breakthrough” for the Ukrainian offensive, though it proved to be nothing of the sort.
In Brussels, the head of NATO said on Wednesday that the alliance would strengthen its military presence along its eastern border in response to the developments in Ukraine. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, said that NATO would immediately send forces to the region as a deterrent. He did not specify how many troops or aircraft would be involved. Later, the Ukrainian military conceded that six vehicles had been captured but said nothing of the surrender of rifles from the other column.
Earlier this month, the alliance ordered an end to most military cooperation with Russia because of the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and its threatening military posture near eastern Ukraine. Others struggled to understand why things had gone so badly wrong. “We try not to criticize our authorities, but it is obvious that we have more and more problems,” said Dmytro Tymchuk, a former military officer and director of the Center of Military and Political Research, a Kiev-based research group.
In Kiev, Parliament met in a closed session Wednesday morning with the heads of the Ukrainian military and security forces. After the first column of six vehicles surrendered, the second, which consisted of 15 vehicles and a radio communication van, halted on the outskirts of the town of Kramatorsk south of here, and waited through the day as several hundred people milled about, drinking beer and fraternizing with the soldiers.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, government supporters and the police set up roadblocks outside the city of Odessa. Journalists were told that the roadblocks had been established to prevent Russian militants from entering the city and completing an arc of uprising from the east through the south of Ukraine, in the country’s predominantly Russian-speaking areas. The paratroopers first tried to clear their path by firing in the air, residents said. A tracked vehicle rammed an unoccupied Opel car parked in the road, easily shoving it aside. But the crowd did not disperse, and in fact seemed in no danger: The soldiers adopted a passive stance, turning off their vehicles, climbing on top and removing the magazines from their rifles.
The degree of support in the east for secession from Ukraine is a matter of dispute. Surveys indicate that only a minority of residents are in favor, with more respondents preferring to remain part of Ukraine with greater autonomy, the position supported by the Russian government. Talks among Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States to discuss the crisis are scheduled for Thursday in Geneva. “People came out of the village and stood in front of the tanks because they do not want them in their village,” said Aleksei Anikov, 33, a construction worker. He said residents supported the pro-Russian militants.
The crowd on the central plaza of Slovyansk appeared stunned by the presence of the armed soldiers and vehicles outside City Hall on Wednesday. Breaking a silence, one woman yelled “Russia! Russia!” but the crowd did not take up the chant. Oleksandr Popov, a second lieutenant in the Ukrainian Army, said he was with a brigade of paratroopers based in Dnipropetrovsk. His orders were to shoot only if fired upon, he said, and that the column was awaiting orders on how to respond to the crowd.
“People say these are the people’s militia,” another woman said, referring to the uniformed men carrying weapons that clearly had not been obtained from the town’s captured police station. “I don’t know these people. They are not locals.” In the late afternoon, the commander, Col. Oleksandr Shvets, negotiated with representatives of the pro-Russian militants, though the militants were nowhere to be seen in the crowd of civilians. Colonel Shvets stood on a tank and told the crowd he had agreed that the soldiers would surrender first the magazines from their rifles, then the guns themselves, in exchange for passage back the way they had come. Colonel Shvets collected magazines in a plastic bag and handed them to men in the crowd. The assault rifles went to a representative of the pro-Russian force.
“I think we’ll live with the Russians now,” said another spectator near the armored vehicles. Some soldiers in the unit were clearly upset, and unready to hand over their rifles. One prayed and tears formed in his eyes at this form of defeat, forced to surrender for an unwillingness to fire on his own people.
Four armored vehicles did break out of the crowd with the soldiers still carrying weapons, an amateur video shot in the late afternoon showed, though it was not clear if they did so in defiance of the colonel’s order not to threaten the people.
Soldiers on these personnel carriers had grenades in their hands and held them out, yelling they were ready to throw them; one soldier dismounted from the vehicle and ran toward the crowd, yelling. These vehicles drove away.
It was unclear by late evening what had happened to the vehicles of the soldiers who handed over their weapons; Colonel Shvets said they would not be given to separatists.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, armed pro-Russian separatists reportedly seized the City Hall building in the provincial capital of Donetsk; they had already controlled the regional administration building. Militants blockaded an administrative building in Yanakiyeve, a town east of Donetsk. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said an officer and an enlisted soldier had been kidnapped in the Luhansk region.
A Russian website news portal, Regnum, citing an unnamed source identified as a Polish diplomat, reported that the deposed president of Ukraine, Viktor F. Yanukovych, intended to travel to eastern Ukraine over the weekend. Mr. Yanukovych has been living in Russia.
In Odessa, government supporters and the police set up roadblocks outside the city. Journalists were told that the roadblocks had been established to prevent Russian militants from entering the city and completing an arc of uprising from the east through the south of Ukraine, in the country’s predominantly Russian-speaking areas.
In Brussels, the head of NATO said Wednesday that the alliance would strengthen its military presence in Eastern Europe. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, said that NATO would immediately send forces to the region as a deterrent. He did not specify how many troops or aircraft would be involved or what kind of assets would be deployed.