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Fighting continues in Ukraine despite looming cease-fire Fighting continues in Ukraine despite looming cease-fire
(about 5 hours later)
MOSCOW — Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Moscow rebel forces clashed Friday ahead of a cease-fire hammered out by European leaders desperate to halt the conflict in eastern Ukraine but also openly questioning whether the peace deal will stick. MOSCOW — Fighting raged in eastern Ukraine ahead of a planned cease-fire, amid increasing doubts over the workability of a day-old peace deal.
Fighting had been anticipated on both sides in attempts to make gains and fortify positions ahead of the planned Sunday cease-fire, which was announced Thursday after marathon talks that included European leaders and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. The battle between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian government forces appeared to be intensifying before a cease-fire set to go into effect at 12 a.m. Sunday, as both sides battled for position. At least 28 people were reported killed since Thursday.
But even in advance the deadline, Ukraine’s president repeated concerns among European officials that the cease-fire may not fully quell the 10-month-old war between separatists favoring ties with Russia and Ukraine’s Western-allied government. The violence came as leaders traded starkly different interpretations about what had been agreed to during the marathon negotiations in Minsk, Belarus , raising questions about how long any truce would last. Among the issues were the status of the front line, the freedom of a politically important Ukrainian soldier in Russian custody and a promised Ukrainian amnesty for the rebels.
“I don’t want anyone to have any illusions and . . . I am not seen as a naive person,” Petro Poroshenko said during a visit to a Ukrainian military base, according to the Reuters news agency. “We are still a very long way from peace.” The deal had been seen as a last chance to avoid an even broader confrontation between the rebels and Ukrainian forces. Fighting had spiked since mid-January, sweeping away the remnants of a previous peace agreement and claiming hundreds more lives in a conflict that has become Europe’s bloodiest since the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.
At least 5,400 people have been killed in the conflict, according to U.N. estimates, and more than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes. But with such major disagreements, leaders warned that even if the cease-fire goes into effect at all, the deal reached after 15-hour talks in the Belarusian capital may soon break down.
The fighting also has raised tensions between Russia and the West to Cold War-era levels. “Nobody has a firm confidence that the Minsk agreements will be observed,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Friday at a speech in the training center of the Ukrainian National Guard. “We are still far from peace, but we hope that it is a way toward de-escalation.”
A day after the cease-fire framework was reached in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said at least 11 soldiers were killed in battles over the past two days, the Associated Press reported. At least 5,400 people have been killed in the 10-month-old conflict, according to U.N. estimates. More than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes.
Rebel casualities were not immediately clear. Key questions were left unresolved in the 13-point peace deal, including the status of the vital Ukrainian-held railway hub of Debaltseve, where pro-Russian rebels have nearly surrounded up to 8,000 Ukrainian troops. Intense battles were taking place there on Friday, both sides reported, as they attempted to establish new facts on the ground before their weapons were to fall silent on Sunday.
Some of the most intense fighting was in Debaltseve, a key railroad hub that has been the scene of fierce battles in recent days. Clashes also appeared ongoing in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, the AP reported. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States issued a joint statement Friday, saying they remain concerned about the situation in Ukraine, in particular in view of the fighting around Debaltseve. “We urge all sides to adhere strictly to the provisions of the Package and to carry out its measures without delay,” starting with the cease-fire Sunday, the statement said.
Under the cease-fire accord, Ukraine accepted sweeping measures to grant rebel-held territories more self-rule. But the leaders of Ukraine, Germany and France cautioned that the deal was fragile, and it was unclear why this one would succeed when a similar bargain in September quickly fell apart. Even aspects of the deal that appeared relatively clear fell into dispute Friday.
One potential stumbling block emerged even before the cease-fire arrived. A Russian oversight board, known as the Investigative Committee, posted comments Friday saying that only a court could free a jailed Ukrainian air force officer, Nadiya Savchenko. Her release has been sought by Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange linked to the cease-fire accord. On Thursday, Poroshenko jubilantly declared that a female Ukrainian helicopter navigator held by Russia would soon be freed under a plan to release all prisoners of war. Nadiya Savchenko has become a folk hero in Ukraine. But a Kremlin spokesman cast cold water on that idea on Friday, saying that Savchenko was still under investigation.
Amid doubts about the deal’s chances for success, the biggest winner appeared to Putin, who short-circuited Western discussions about imposing new economic and military costs for his role in fueling the war. “She is not an illegally held person, she is not a POW, she is not a hostage. She is under investigation in strict accordance with current legislation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies. Separately, a top judicial official said that courts had no plan to release her.
Russia has denied Western reports that Moscow has sent troops and arms to aid the rebels. And though Kiev agreed in the deal to issue an amnesty to those who took part in pro-rebel actions, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told parliament on Friday that the pardon would not extend to rebel leaders because of a September law excluding those who had committed “grave crimes.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine committed itself to politically tricky efforts to grant rebel-held territory new freedoms. Rebels said that was a sign that the Ukrainian government was already backing away from the deal.
Leaders, diplomats and fighters all agreed that the cease-fire would face great challenges. “We will only be ready for unconditional compliance with the Minsk accords if Kiev complies with them too, if no one shoots us,” rebel spokesman Eduard Basurin told the Interfax news service. He said seven civilians had been killed in rebel-held territory in the previous day.
There were few mechanisms to ensure that heavy weaponry would be rolled back at least 30 miles from the front lines, nor was there agreement about the status of the crucial Ukrainian-held transport hub Debaltseve, where as many as 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers may be surrounded by rebels. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that 11 soldiers had been killed and 40 wounded in fighting in the previous day. He also said that pro-Russian forces had stepped up their use of drones for battlefield surveillance and that they appeared to be targeting infrastructure before the cease-fire requires heavy weaponry to pull back.
And a key Ukrainian demand to regain full control of its border with Russia was put off until the end of the year. Rebels have seized hundreds of miles of frontier, creating an open path for weapons and fighters to flow from Russia. A pro-Kiev militia also said that a tank battle was underway east of the Ukrainian-held port city of Mariupol, where they had tried to gain ground from rebel fighters in recent days.
In a measure of the leaders’ lack of confidence in the deal, they signed no binding documents, leaving that to lower-level Ukrainian, Russian and rebel leaders. Separately, at least 10 civilians were killed on the Ukrainian side of the fighting, regional authorities said, including a child and an adult in the government-held city of Artemivsk. The city has been relatively free of fighting for months, and it has been a triage site for wounded soldiers and evacuees from the besieged town of Debaltseve about 30 miles away. It was not immediately clear who was responsible.
Instead, the quartet of leaders agreed to a nonbinding statement in which they confirmed the “full respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
“We now have a glimmer of hope,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. But she also noted that “there are still major hurdles that lie ahead.”
The deal nevertheless was enough to halt talk in both Washington and Brussels of further sanctions. There was scant mention of sending U.S. arms to the Ukrainian military, a specter that last week sent the German and French leaders speeding to Moscow to seek peace with Putin.
“The United States is prepared to consider rolling back sanctions on Russia when the Minsk agreements of September 2014, and now this agreement, are fully implemented,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a statement.
Still, top officials said Thursday that if this deal falls apart, different approaches would be needed.
“If it fails, there is going to be a change of strategy, not only by the United States but also by some of the European countries,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics.
One prominent American voice in favor of arming Ukraine said Thursday’s outcome was only to be expected.
Putin has “great cards, and he’s playing them well,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. “He doesn’t let anyone know what his bottom line is.”
Daalder added: “We’re constantly telling him what our bottom line is, and that’s that . . . we don’t want a military confrontation, period.”
Deane reported from London. Karoun Demirjian and Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow, and Carol Morello and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.