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Gunfire Heard on Outskirts of Pro-Russian Enclave in Ukraine Deadly Clashes Erupt in Ukraine as Troops Push Toward a Rebel-Held City
(about 11 hours later)
SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — Gunfire echoed around the outskirts of the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine on Monday, news reports said, as the interim president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said roadblocks were being set up around the capital, Kiev, because of fears of “provocation” during an emotionally-charged holiday later in the week. SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian security forces and antigovernment rebels clashed on the edges of this rebel-controlled city on Monday as the acting president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, said roadblocks were being set up around Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, because of fears of disturbances or violence during an emotionally charged holiday later in the week.
The intensity of the fighting seemed unclear as the Ukrainian military continued its push toward Slovyansk with limited attacks on at least two rebel-held positions in the city’s southeast. As many as 10 rebels and four soldiers were killed in the fighting, according to the official accounts from both sides, along with a woman who was shot while standing on an apartment balcony during a bloody firefight along the highway to Slovyansk’s east.
In Semyonovka, at least one rebel was injured. In Andreyevka, where Ukrainian forces took and subsequently withdrew from a bridge last week, shots were exchanged, but no casualties were reported. But at the end of the day the violence accomplished little for either side besides deepening resentments and anger and appearing to push the crisis further from a chance at peaceful resolution.
Arsen Avakov, the acting interior minister, told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency that the flare-up began when pro-Russian militants ambushed government forces. The rebels yielded a single checkpoint to the government, at Rybkhoz, from which they withdrew during a morning advance by a Ukrainian armored unit. But the antigovernment forces still held Slovyansk, where residents continued to fell trees and stack tires to create obstacles to any military push.
“In the morning, a squad in the antiterrorist operation was hit by an ambush by terrorist groups. They are using heavy weapons,” Mr. Avakov was quoted as saying from a checkpoint close to Slovyansk, using the Ukrainian government’s term for the separatists. He said there were fatalities, but he did not provide a death toll. The most pitched fighting, at Semyonovka, at the city’s eastern border, ended with both sides pulling back with their wounded or dead, leaving behind pools of blood, burning vehicles and a gas station that was rocked by the explosion of a commercial propane tank. The fighting there also included the civilian death, which is likely to fuel the city’s building sense of anger and grief.
While the militants are holed up in official buildings in Slovyansk, Mr. Avakov said, “the only tactic is to advance little by little toward the center of Slovyansk.” In Kiev, the provisional government said vehicle checkpoints had been set up at strategic locations around the capital in anticipation of potential violence before a holiday on Friday commemorating victory over the Nazis in World War II.
Agence France-Presse reported that the head of Ukraine’s national guard, Stepan Poltorak, was at the same checkpoint as Mr. Avakov, about four miles from the fighting. “We have bottled them up in the center” of Slovyansk, the national guard commander said, but he added that “our adversaries are well-trained and well-equipped.” “War is in effect being waged against us, and we must be ready to repel this aggression,” Mr. Turchynov said, announcing the roadblocks on Monday in an interview on Ukraine’s Channel 5 television station.
“They are doing all they can to make us resort to heavy weapons, but we won’t do that in order to spare the civilian population,” he was quoted as saying. Mr. Turchynov also said that Parliament would meet in a special closed session on Tuesday for a report by security agencies on measures to stabilize the country. In a statement, Mr. Turchynov urged all lawmakers to attend and said that “important decisions will be taken related to the security of Ukraine.”
There were no further details, or independent corroboration, of the developments. For several days, forces loyal to the interim government in Kiev have been deployed as part of an effort to dislodge the pro-Russian militants who have taken control of key installations in several eastern cities. The government seemed to be stepping up its efforts to counter the pro-Russian disinformation campaign that has flooded the television airwaves in the country’s east and portrayed the central authorities as illegitimate. Mr. Turchynov’s office released a number of statements, including one that criticized efforts by those it called terrorists to enlist miners from eastern Ukraine in antigovernment actions.
The crisis could worsen, Mr. Turchynov told Ukrainian television, on Friday, when Ukraine celebrates Victory Day, the 69th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Most of the residents of Slovyansk, a small industrial city, have never experienced war, and in Khimik, a neighborhood about a mile and a half from the battle, people crowded on the upper-story balconies of an apartment building to listen and watch as the two sides clashed at an intersection beside the railway crossing in Semyonovka.
“War is in effect being waged against us, and we must be ready to repel this aggression,” Mr. Turchynov was quoted as saying, as he announced the plan to ring Kiev with roadblocks. This curiosity proved fatal, according to Sergey N. Sheptenko, when his wife, Irina Boevets, 30, was struck by a bullet in the head. Mr. Sheptenko found her moments later, lying on her right side in a pool of blood.
The developments came a day after other Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine spun further out of the central government’s control. A mob stormed a police station in the Black Sea port of Odessa on Sunday and freed from detention 67 pro-Russian militants, on the same day that Ukraine’s prime minister was visiting the city. Standing with reddened eyes before his apartment door, he seemed in shock, describing a loss he had only begun to know.
At a news conference, the acting prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, criticized police officers, suggesting that they had been soliciting bribes at an outdoor market rather than trying to suppress pro-Russian rebels. Had they focused on their jobs, he said, “These terrorist organizations would have been foiled.” “There is no one, no one is home,” he whispered, hoarsely. “Only silence.”
It was not clear whether Ms. Boevets was targeted or struck by a stray bullet; her husband said he suspected a sniper.
The fighting at Semyonovka raged in the morning after rebels took up a position on the highway, one witness said. The Ukrainian government said the rebels ambushed a convoy, but the witness described it differently, saying that a patrol of armored vehicles attacked the new rebel position, killing many of them.
At a gas station near the intersection, ordnance appeared to strike a large storage tank, causing an explosion that set fire to a four-door hatchback car, knocked aside another tank and heaved debris that smashed the front end of a cargo truck.
The attendant, who said he was pressed flat to the floor as the station was rocked by the blast and hit with bullets, spoke with dismay. “I don’t know how we can resolve this,” he said. “What steps can the Ukrainian people take to stop the shooting? We have children.”
In Andreyevka, where Ukrainian forces took a bridge and subsequently withdrew from it last week, an explosion late in the morning set the bridge’s guards scrambling. Rebels crouched along walls and in the vegetation nearby, saying they had been attacked by a helicopter. “None were wounded, thank God,” said Maksim, a former paratrooper who, like many fighters, withheld his last name.
Arsen Avakov, the acting interior minister, was present for part of the fighting, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. He offered an explanation for the gradual tightening of the Ukrainian forces around Slovyansk, which he has called a blockade. While militants remain sandbagged in official buildings inside, he said, “the only tactic is to advance little by little toward the center.”
The head of Ukraine’s national guard, Stepan Poltorak, was quoted as telling Agence France-Presse, “They are doing all they can to make us resort to heavy weapons, but we won’t do that in order to spare the civilian population.”
In Odessa on Monday, burials began for the 46 people who died in street fighting and a fire three days before. Mourners stood around the open grave of one of the pro-Russian leaders, Vyachislav Markin, and then in turn took handfuls of black earth and cast them silently onto the coffin.
Relatives sobbed and his supporters spoke of a man who had died before his time. Mr. Markin perished in the fire that burned a trade union building where pro-Russian activists had holed up after losing a street battle with pro-Ukrainian activists on Friday.
With the three-day period of mourning declared by the city ending Tuesday, Mr. Avakov, the interior minister, said he had sent a newly formed police unit called Kiev-1 from the capital to Odessa, in case fighting erupts again.
In a Facebook post, Mr. Avakov held police officials in Odessa responsible for failing to prevent a pro-Russian mob from attacking a pro-Ukrainian rally, a confrontation that touched off the violence on Friday.
The new police unit was drawn from the street activists who helped topple Ukraine’s government in February after months of demonstrations on a central plaza in Kiev in favor of closer economic ties with Europe and against corruption.
Mr. Avakov said he had fired the entire leadership of the Odessa police.
Tensions remained high in Odessa, with the sense that the street fighting of last week was not so much over as in abeyance.
With Ukrainian flags flying about town and pro-Ukrainian groups clearly stronger in the streets, it was unclear if the pro-Russian group could muster the forces to mount another struggle to seize buildings or raise Russian flags in public.
Pro-Russian militants angry about their dead have posted the names and addresses of pro-Ukrainian activists online to invite revenge attacks.