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Clashes over Ukraine rail hub test pledges for cease-fire Ukraine concedes it is losing control of strategic rail hub to pro-Russian rebels
(about 1 hour later)
ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels waged street-by-street battles in a strategic rail hub Tuesday, ignoring a cease-fire provision to begin withdrawing heavy weapons and exposing potential holes in the peace deal. OUTSIDE SVITLODARSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military admitted Tuesday that it no longer had full control over the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve, as rebel leaders claimed to have seized broad swaths of ground in street-by-street combat, including the train station.
Separatists appeared to make gains amid the chaos, claiming they took control of the prized railway station in Debaltseve. Government officials conceded that their forces lost ground and that some soldiers were taken prisoner, but they insisted that the fighting remained fluid. The separatists’ apparent gains in Debaltseve came as Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists picked up the pace of their artillery campaigns, trading fire in areas around the city despite a three-day-old cease-fire under which the two sides were to remove their heavy weapons from the front lines starting midnight Tuesday.
The various claims over Debaltseve could not be independently verified, and the Ukrainian statement did not give details on what areas were in rebel hands. Throughout the day, Ukrainian military personnel were seen and heard launching projectiles from multiple-rocket launchers along a highway leading to Debaltseve, while evidence of shelling from rebel positions also was apparent, especially near a power plant outside Svitlodarsk, where one shell hit a gas pipe, causing a fiery explosion.
But the ongoing fighting poses a critical test for a cease-fire agreement reached last week in attempts to quell the most serious conflict in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The worsening situation posed a critical challenge to the continued viability of the cease-fire, which never really took effect around Debaltseve though it was observed at other points along the front lines since going into effect Sunday. And before the fighting in Debaltseve potentially unravels the fragile peace elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, it poses an existential question for Kiev: What to do about the 5,000 troops all but trapped in the city.
Under the timetable, forces from both sides should have begun withdrawing heavy weapons, such as artillery, from front-line positions in eastern Ukraine. The clashes suggest neither side was willing to make the first move and give its enemy the opportunity to grab land. Over the past several days, separatist forces have effectively encircled Debaltseve, blocking it on all sides except along the highway leading to pro-Ukrainian territory. But soldiers who escaped described that road as all but impassable, because the rebels occupy positions on either side.
If Ukrainian troops and rebels fail to withdraw their heavy weapons, it will be the latest blow to efforts to end the 10-month-old conflict between separatists favoring close ties with Russia and Ukraine’s Western-allied government. More than 5,600 people have been killed in the conflict, according to U.N. estimates. Although Ukraine has gone through a series of large-scale mobilizations since it began fighting against separatists in the east, 5,000 soldiers is still a measurable percentage of the Ukrainian army’s ready fighting force. A year ago, before the war commenced, it would have been almost the entire combat-ready force of the country, according to estimates the defense minister provided to parliament at the time.
But since the cease-fire went into effect Sunday at midnight, it has been largely ignored in the area around Debaltseve, even though other areas have largely quieted. Pro-Russian rebel leaders have offered the troops a way out only through surrender. On Tuesday, they claimed that at least dozens of pro-Kiev soldiers were voluntarily giving up their positions and weapons.
Rebels have made apparent gains in their bid to surround and take over the city, which has been defended by about 5,000 Ukrainian troops.
Separatist leaders claimed Tuesday that they had taken control of the eastern part of Debaltseve and the rail station, whose lines connect several points in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions where separatists have declared breakaway “republics.”
Rebel officials also reported Tuesday that at least 20 Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve had surrendered.
Russian state television reported that 125 had surrendered, while the Russian Interfax news agency cited unnamed separatist officials as claiming that 300 pro-Kiev soldiers had given up.
“The Debaltseve ‘boiling pot’ is closed,” Luhansk rebel leader Igor Plotnitsky said. “It is Ukraine who cannot, and does not want to, recognize this.”“The Debaltseve ‘boiling pot’ is closed,” Luhansk rebel leader Igor Plotnitsky said. “It is Ukraine who cannot, and does not want to, recognize this.”
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said rebel fighters, backed by artillery and armored vehicles, had taken “part of the town” during street fighting, the Reuters news agency reported. The ministry described the clashes as “ongoing” but gave no further details. But Col. Andriy Lysenko a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, denied that any Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered. He also accused the separatists of capturing a group of Ukrainian soldiers who were trying to deliver supplies to encircled troops when they ran out ammunition — but he did not say how many had been taken prisoner.
“They are trying to capture Debaltseve at any price,” said Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman .for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. Trapped soldiers and some of those who managed to break out described the situation on the ground as a special brand of hell. The protracted crisis has inspired leaders of some of Ukraine’s volunteer battalions to plead with Kiev to adopt a new strategy.
He said Ukrainian military forces were shelled 40 times on Tuesday in Debaltseve and that a group of Ukrainian soldiers was “taken prisoner by the overwhelming forces of the enemy” after running out of ammunition. He did not say how many troops were captured. Semyon Semenchenko, the head of the pro-Kiev Donbas battalion, many of whose fighters are in Debaltseve, called on military and political leaders to take “decisive actions” to free the soldiers, adding that any delays could be “very costly” and that simply trying to hold their position “could lead to disaster.”
The battles unfolded just hours after the cease-fire timetable called for both sides to begin pulling back from the front lines. Semenchenko suggested that it might be time to give up trying to hold Debaltseve.
The full withdrawal — at least 30 miles from the former advanced positions — does not need to be completed until two weeks. But neither side appeared willing — or able — to give up ground. “It is necessary to save the core of the army,” he said. “Territory we can always get back.”
Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoliy Stelmakh blamed rebels who he said were pressing attacks around Debaltseve. The situation in Debaltseve has led Ukrainians to draw likenesses between the soldiers’ ongoing predicament there and the summer siege of Ilovaysk, during which the Donbas battalion claimed 1,000 soldiers had died.
“As soon as the militants cease fire, the Ukrainian side will begin to withdraw heavy weaponry from the front line,” he said. “We have had Ilovaysk. Now we have Debaltseve,” Oleksandr Chelobitchenko, a senior lieutenant on the Ukrainian side of the Joint Control Commission, a combined Ukrainian-Russian observational team based in Soledar, said Tuesday. “If you keep cutting the branches off a tree, eventually the tree will die. This is very bad, to lose all this.”
But Plotnitsky, the Luhansk rebel leader, claimed that the pro-Moscow forces were withdrawing tanks and artillery, and he said he “expects the same from Ukraine,” the Russian news agency TASS reported. But the sum total of the stakes of losing Debaltseve is not just in the number of soldiers’ lives hanging in the balance, Chelobitchenko said.
Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russia of sending troops and weapons to bolster the separatists. Russia strongly denies the claims. “It’s not just the people. It’s also the equipment and the weapons there,” he said. “If one side takes over the equipment, they can turn it against the other side.”
Further measures from the West hinge on the success of the cease-fire. The White House has said it was considering sending military aid to Ukraine if the present attempt to halt the fighting unravels. The equipment and weapons that could trade hands if Ukrainian troops surrender or lose would be a significant gain for rebel forces, even if Ukrainian leaders are still regularly pleading with their Western allies, especially the United States, to supplement their combat efforts with lethal military aid. They need it, Ukrainian leaders insist, to face up against separatists that Kiev and its allies believe are being directly supplemented by Russian troops and weapons.
Asked Tuesday how Russia would respond to U.S. shipment of lethal arms to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin asserted that “these weapons are available now.” Putin, speaking after a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, said he was convinced that “no matter who delivers weapons, whatever their kind, the number of victims can certainly increase, but the result will be the same as it is today.” Russia has routinely denied direct involvement in the conflict. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed a finger in the opposite direction. Asked during a visit to Hungary how Russia would respond to a U.S. shipment of lethal arms to Ukraine, Putin said that “these weapons are available now.” He also said that no matter what weapons were introduced in the conflict, “the number of victims can certainly increase.”
The Obama administration has said repeatedly that no decision has been made to send lethal aid to Ukraine. Asked about Putin’s statement, a U.S. National Security Council spokesman said there has been “no change to our policy” of not sending such weapons and that the White House had “no idea what Putting is referring to.” The Obama administration has said repeatedly that no decision has been made to send lethal aid to Ukraine. A spokesman for the National Security Council said Tuesday that the policy was still intact and that the administration had “no idea what Putin is referring to.”
In New York, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a Russian-sponsored resolution endorsing last week’s Minsk agreement and calling on “all parties . . . to fully implement” the measures, “including a comprehensive cease-fire.” Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his government was “fully willing to facilitate implementation of these agreements,” but he stressed a need to avoid adopting measures that would contradict the “letter and the spirit” of the accord.
U.S. Ambassador Samatha Power, who joined the rest of the council’s 15 members in voting for the resolution, said it was “ironic, to say the least,” that it had been introduced by Russia, which, she said, “manufactured and continues to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.”
“Russia’s commitments,” she said, appear to “have no bearing on its soldiers and the separatists they back” in Ukraine.
In the hours leading up to the cease-fire, pro-Russian rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko told Interfax that the separatists would not be holding their fire around Debaltseve. That is because of rebel claims that the peace agreement made no specific mention of the city.
The Ukrainian government does not accept this interpretation of the agreement, reached in the Belarus capital, Minsk.
But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said during marathon peace negotiations last week that Russia had a particular interest in Debaltseve and that separatists always intended to seize the city.
Rebel leaders maintain that Debaltseve is their land and not subject to the cease-fire terms.
“We have the right to decide what and how to conduct things there,” Plotnitsky said.
Karen DeYoung and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.Karen DeYoung and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.