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Fight for airport in eastern Ukraine continues; president-elect calls rebels ‘pirates’ In Ukraine, fighting at airport continues as president-elect vows to seek unity
(about 4 hours later)
DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian security forces and rebels continued to battle Monday night for this city’s airport hours after president-elect Petro Poroshenko promised in Kiev to unite his country, a pledge that appeared no closer to reality one day after the billionaire won office. DONETSK, Ukraine — Explosions and gunbattles continued to rock this separatist region of eastern Ukraine late Monday night as state security forces fought rebels for control of a major airport, hours after Ukraine’s president-elect declared in Kiev that he would seek to unite the nation after a months-long crisis.
Poroshenko, who made his fortune in chocolate, must now guide his divided nation through a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine that has created the greatest tension between the West and Russia since the Cold War. As a Ukrainian military helicopter exchanged fire with separatist militants along an airport highway in Donetsk and the thunder of mortar shells sent residents running for cover, Petro Poroshenko told reporters that he would move quickly to bring peace and stability to the country and that he planned to visit the violence-plagued Donets Basin in his first trip as Ukraine’s leader.
On Monday, he vowed to push hard against the separatists, whom he called “Somali pirates,” saying security operations should be swift and powerful against the rebels in Ukraine’s Donets Basin, known colloquially as Donbas. The parallel realities underscored the depth of Poroshenko’s challenges. Without the main airport of the Donets Basin, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, under full government control, even the basic practicality of fulfilling his pledge to visit was in question.
“Their goal is to turn Donbas into Somalia, and I will never allow such things to happen in my country,” Poroshenko, 48, told reporters. But he also held out an olive branch to the industrial region by saying elections should take place there to give citizens a measure of local control. Poroshenko, 48, faces the daunting task of quelling the pro-Russia rebellion in the east while meeting the demands of the Europe-leaning constituency that elected him — tamping down corruption and modernizing the former Soviet republic’s economy. Whether the billionaire can successfully navigate Ukraine’s turbulent relationship with Russia will also be key.
It was unclear late Monday who was in control of Donetsk International Airport, where a firefight broke out earlier in the day when Ukrainian forces and helicopters moved in, hours after armed pro-Russia militants seized the terminal. Shots were still ringing out in the area. Poroshenko, a chocolate magnate who ran on a platform of bringing Ukraine closer to its European neighbors, vowed Monday to launch a swift military operation to crush the separatists, whom he likened to “Somali pirates.”
The rebels took the airport sometime before 7 a.m., when the airport’s Web site announced its closure and the cancellation of flights without explaining why. Local police set up a roadblock at the intersection of the airport access road and Vzlyotnaya Boulevard, about six miles from the city center. “Their goal is to turn Donbas into Somalia, and I will never allow such things to happen in my country,” he said, using another name for the Donets Basin and apparently citing the African nation as an example of a place where militants have more power than the state.
Shortly after 1 p.m., four Ukrainian helicopters flew over the treetops near the airport, and within minutes, machine-gun fire erupted west of the terminal. Heavy explosives were heard nearby, especially to the east, where black smoke billowed from the vicinity of a large shopping plaza. Military jets flew overhead, dropping chaff to counter possible antiaircraft missiles. But he offered an olive branch to eastern Ukraine by saying that elections should take place to give residents there a measure of local control. And he conceded that the cooperation of Russia — which Kiev and the West have accused of fomenting the separatist rebellion — would be crucial to ending the violence.
As police fled the checkpoint, a minivan pulled up with about six armed militants in fatigues, flak jackets and masks, who began moving toward the airport. The shooting became more chaotic as some gunmen hid in trees across from a Lexus car dealership, while antiaircraft fire and machine-gun volleys sounded in the vicinity of the commercial airport’s radar array. “Russia is our biggest neighbor,” Poroshenko said. “Stopping war and bringing peace to all Ukraine, bringing stability to the eastern part of Ukraine, that will be impossible without the participation of Russia.”
The fighting rose and fell in intensity until about 4:30 p.m., with bullets snapping through the trees and among the homes of a residential neighborhood south of the airport, when more helicopters swooped in. Rebels hiding in the trees fired at a helicopter, and two Poroshenko said those talks would start as early as next month, adding that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin “know each other quite well.”
Ukrainian gunships returned moments later, with one of them diving down to rain fire into the wooded area. Russian officials said Monday that the Kremlin was ready to hold talks with Poroshenko, signaling a more conciliatory tone after months of finger-pointing between Kiev and Moscow amid a conflict that has left Russia’s relationship with the United States and Europe at its lowest point since the Cold War.
There was a lull in the fighting near the airport at about 4:30. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine’s election Sunday was “not without problems.” But Russia will “respect the will expressed by the Ukrainian people,” he told reporters in Moscow, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Local news outlets reported that passengers and employees were partially evacuated from the city’s main railroad station, about three miles from the airport, and train service was temporarily interrupted. One body was seen lying near the railway station. “We, as our president said repeatedly, are ready for a dialogue with Kiev representatives, ready for a dialogue with Petro Poroshenko,” Lavrov said.
Yet even during the fighting, some residents walked by casually, Battle for the airport
occasionally taking cover behind trees. One young boy came to take pictures with his cellphone until police shouted at him to go away. The extent of casualties was not immediately clear. The intense clash at the Donetsk airport, which continued Monday night, seemed to show a hardening of wills from the government and the rebels. The separatists — who have felt their cause jeopardized by internal divisions, waning support from Moscow and a decision by industrial magnate Rinat Akhmetov to throw his financial might to the side of unity — had declared martial law and demanded that Ukrainian troops leave.
Poroshenko, one of the country’s wealthiest tycoons, has said that his first official act will be to visit the heart of the rebellion in Donbas, where violence or the threat of it prevented millions of people from voting Sunday. The rebels seized the airport sometime before 7 a.m., when the airport’s Web site announced its closure and the cancellation of flights without an explanation. But the Ukrainian military showed its resolve to take the fight to the militants. Shortly after 1 p.m., four Ukrainian helicopters flew over the treetops near the airport, and within minutes, machine-gun fire erupted west of the terminal.
Poroshenko said he also plans talks with Moscow next month. He said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin “know each other quite well,” while Putin has said he will cooperate with the new authorities in Kiev. Explosions resounded along a major highway for hours, as armed rebels in fatigues and balaclavas darted through nearby woods. The helicopters opened fire on the rebels, and military jets zoomed low to drop chaff — bits of aluminum or small flares that military aircraft expel to confuse heat-seeking or radar-guided missiles — over the forest and highway.
“Russia is our biggest neighbor,” Poroshenko said. “Stopping the war and bringing stability to all Ukraine, bringing peace to eastern Ukraine, that would be impossible” without Russia.” A helicopter gunship destroyed a rebel-held antiaircraft array that was being used against Ukrainian security forces, said Vladislav Seleznev, a spokesman for the military’s anti-separatist operations.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters in Moscow on Monday that Russia will “respect the will expressed by the Ukrainian people.” He also said Russia is ready for a dialogue with Poroshenko and the government in Kiev, the Interfax news agency reported. Shots continued to ring out well after sundown, and it was unclear Monday night who was in control of the airport or how many people had been injured or killed in the fighting.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry praised Sunday’s voting, noting that international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe viewed them as a demonstration of the interim government’s “clear resolve” to conduct a fair election. Observers say vote was fair
“The large turnout sends a clear message: the Ukrainian people want to live in a united, democratic and peaceful Ukraine anchored in European institutions,” Kerry said in a written statement. Poroshenko, a seasoned politician, captured 54 percent of Sunday’s presidential vote in an election that attracted a 60 percent turnout across the country, according to the Central Election Commission. In the Donetsk region, turnout was 15 percent, and in the eastern region of Luhansk it was 39 percent.
Exit polls showed that Poroshenko captured about 55 percent of the vote Sunday, enough to win outright without a second round of balloting. Turnout appeared to be high everywhere except in the embattled east. The Central Election Commission estimated that 60 percent of registered voters cast ballots nationwide, a spokesman said. A regional breakdown was not immediately available, but 14 percent of the country’s registered voters live in the two eastern regions where voting was impeded Sunday. International observers said the elections were fair and well-organized, despite the voting problems in those eastern regions.
Poroshenko’s election came three months after massive protests forced former president Viktor Yanukovych to flee. Since his ouster, Russia has annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and violence in eastern Ukraine has escalated into near-civil war. “The disenfranchisement in these places of voters represents a serious violation of rights. At the same time, it does not negate the legitimacy of the election,” said former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who led a delegation of observers from the National Democratic Institute.
Poroshenko is a soft-spoken businessman who built a candy empire out of the ashes of Ukraine’s post-Soviet economy. He has worked on both sides of the country’s political divide, as foreign minister during the pro-Western presidency of Viktor Yushchenko and briefly as economy minister under Yanukovych. But Poroshenko allied himself with protesters shortly after Yanukovych rejected a deal in November to move toward integration with the European Union. Still, some U.S. politicians who were in Kiev to monitor the elections said Russia disrupted the vote in the east — an action that the Obama administration previously said would trigger further sanctions against Russia.
In a symbolic attempt to move beyond the turmoil that has gripped Ukraine since the demonstrations began, Kiev mayor-elect Vitali Klitshchko said Monday that it was time to clear Independence Square. Protesters have remained camped in the Maidan, as the square is known, transforming it into a sprawling tent city crisscrossed by barricades of scrap metal and tires. “If there are other sanctions bills that come on the floor of the House, yeah, absolutely, I’m going to evaluate those with likely a very positive or favorable light,” said Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.), who was in Kiev to observe the voting.
The presence of the Maidan encampments has been a goad to separatists, who have seized several government buildings and set up barricades in eastern Ukraine and now accuse the Kiev government of a double standard. The election will give Ukraine’s leader a stronger negotiating position after months when an interim government, which took office after the ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, had no popular mandate. And Poroshenko, who has worked as a cabinet minister in both pro-Kremlin and pro-Western governments, is considered well-placed to navigate between the two camps.
Birnbaum reported from Kiev. Anastasiia Fedosova in Donetsk, Daniela Deane in London, and Abigail Hauslohner in Moscow also contributed to this report. Poroshenko allied himself with Ukraine’s protest movement shortly after Yanukovych rejected a trade deal in November that would have moved Ukraine toward integration with the European Union. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February.
Russia has appeared to swing its support from the separatists to the new government in Kiev in recent days. But the Kremlin may not have any more intention now than it did several months ago of seeing Kiev slip out of its sphere of influence and into Europe’s. Continued chaos in the east may serve Russia’s interests by discouraging Ukraine’s prospects for E.U. membership.
“It’s not the end of the game,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a Moscow-based political analyst and the editor in chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine. “I think Putin’s view on Ukraine is that it is a very long-term crisis,” he said. And Poroshenko “will need to seek deals with Russia and the eastern part of the country.”
Adding to the challenge, the Kremlin’s intentions may be inherently at odds with Poroshenko’s goals, one analyst said.
“I think Russia’s strategy in the Ukrainian crisis is related to its fundamental desire to prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union and NATO in any kind of way,” said Grigory Golosov, a political science professor at St. Petersburg University.
Ukrainians who voted for Poroshenko in more stable regions of the country expressed hope over the weekend that his experience — and the lesser nature of his corruption, compared with that of his peers — would give him an edge in resolving the nation’s conflict.
Buoyed by the election’s success, Kiev mayor-elect Vitali Klitschko said Monday that it was time to clear the city’s central square of the barricades and protester encampments that have blocked roads in and out of the area since November.
The presence of the encampments has been a goad to separatists who seized government buildings and set up barricades in eastern Ukraine; they accuse Kiev of enforcing a double standard.