KIEV, Ukraine — Renewed clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian security forces Thursday left at least 13 soldiers dead as violence escalated across beleaguered eastern Ukraine three days before crucial elections.
DONETSK, Ukraine — Intense fighting broke out between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian security forces in the country’s eastern region, killing at least 13 soldiers and further raising tensions just three days before a pivotal national election.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said the 13 were killed when rebels attacked a Ukrainian military checkpoint near the town of Volnovakha with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
The clashes prompted Ukrainian officials to call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and broke several days of relative calm amid reports of divisions in the separatist ranks. The United States and its European allies have accused Russia of sowing chaos in eastern Ukraine to throw off the election, and they have threatened Moscow with additional sanctions if the vote is disrupted.
Earlier, journalists from the Associated Press counted 11 bodies of Ukrainian troops scattered around the checkpoint after the attack by pro-Russian insurgents in the eastern Donetsk region, which separatists declared a “sovereign” republic last week. Witnesses said 33 Ukrainian troops were wounded in the attack near the village of Blahodatne, AP reported. The village is about 35 miles southwest of Donetsk, the regional capital, and about 10 miles north of Volnovakha.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said Thursday that the Ukrainian troops were killed when rebels attacked a checkpoint with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades near the town of Volnovakha, about 12 miles south of this city. A regional health official later said that 16 people had died.
“We do have people killed on our side,” Andriy Parubiy, the head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, told reporters in Kiev. He said another battle was ongoing near Rubizhne, a town in the Luhansk region, a second area declared a sovereign republic after a chaotic referendum there on May 11.
Witnesses told the Associated Press that the attackers arrived in a bank’s armored car, which the unsuspecting soldiers waved through the checkpoint, only to be mowed down at point-blank range.
A rebel group claimed responsibility for the attack near Blahodatne and said one of its fighters was also killed, AP said. Three charred Ukrainian armored personnel carriers and several burned trucks were seen at the site. Residents said the attackers used an armored bank truck, which the unsuspecting Ukrainian soldiers waved through the checkpoint, only to be mowed down at point-blank range, the news agency reported. The residents’ account could not be independently confirmed.
The Foreign Ministry also said Ukrainian border guards repelled an attack Wednesday by “several groups of armed militants” who were trying to enter the country from Russia. Describing one of the attacks, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that three trucks and a sport-utility vehicle attempted to cross the border in the Luhansk region late Wednesday, but that the border guards fired warning shots and the cars raced back into Russia.
In the town of Horlivka, about 27 miles northeast of Donetsk, a masked rebel commander said his fighters “destroyed a checkpoint of the fascist Ukrainian army deployed on the land the Donetsk Republic.” He displayed an array of seized weapons, calling them “trophies,” in a courtyard of the rebel-occupied Horlivka police headquarters, AP said.
Ukrainians are scheduled to go to the polls Sunday in presidential and mayoral elections that could determine the direction of the country and its alignment between Russia and the West.
Ukrainians are scheduled to go to the polls Sunday in presidential and mayoral elections that could determine the very makeup of the country and its alignment between Russia and the West. The separatists, who have seized government buildings and clashed with troops, are boycotting the elections.
Pro-Russian separatists in its eastern region have declared the vote illegal and been actively seeking to halt it.
“There was a huge operation being prepared today in many directions, and every attempt has been repelled,” Parubiy said. At least 60 separatists also commandeered an electric train in Luhansk and attempted to reach the town of Svatove, he said. Ukrainian security forces captured the train and turned it back, he said.
At district election commission No. 42 here, for example, a group of about 10 armed men from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic arrived last week to tell the employees their work was done. Their message was clear: There will be no presidential election in Ukraine this Sunday if the pro-Russian separatists have their way.
Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told journalists the Kiev that the interim government is pressing for an urgent U.N. Security Council session to show that Russia is escalating the conflict and trying to disrupt the elections.
“I was terrified and locked the door,” said Elvira Maslova, 51, a receptionist who works down the hall.
“Provocations by the Russian side in Ukraine are regarded as attempts to disrupt the presidential elections on May 25 and to destabilize the situation in the eastern region of our country,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Separatists have targeted other election offices in the Donetsk region, which is home to about 3.5 million voters, or nearly 10 percent of the country’s voters, a regional election official said.
The Foreign Ministry said Ukrainian border guards repelled an attack Wednesday by “several groups of armed militants” who were trying to enter Ukraine from Russia in the Luhansk region.
On Thursday, armed militants closed another of the Donetsk region’s district election commission offices, each of which organizes and oversees voting for several polling stations.
Describing one of the attacks, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that three trucks and a sport utility vehicle attempted to cross the border at 10:00 p.m. Wednesday without stopping at checkpoints. The border guards fired warning shots, and the cars sped back into Russia, it said.
At other locations, some local officials were abducted, but usually released a short time later, and at least one was beaten, said Valeriy Zhaldak, a former Ministry of Justice employee who is serving as elections adviser to Donetsk’s regional government. In the city of Horlivka, the person who was heading the district election commission apparently crossed to the separatist side and was proclaimed the “people’s mayor,” Zhakdak said.
The ministry said that an hour later, a group of people armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers and sniper rifles attempted to storm a separate border post, also in the Luhansk region. Five border guards were injured, the ministry said, and the guards destroyed “two sniper groups.”
“There are always fights somewhere,” Zhaldak said.
The Foreign Ministry also said that a Russian Mi-8 helicopter violated Ukraine’s airspace Wednesday.
Zhaldak, who is working out of a hotel because pro-Russian separatists still occupy the main regional administration building, said some election offices have been relocated from hotspots, such as rebel-held Slovyansk. Some local elections officials also have agreed to hide voter records, ballot boxes and other materials in their homes.
In Kiev, the head of an international effort to foster a national dialogue called for an informal cease-fire ahead of the Sunday elections.
Denis Pushilin, a leader of the People’s Republic of Donetsk who sees the national government as an occupier, said the elections are illegal in his territory but denied using violence to halt them.
“To the government and also to those who use violent means in the east to oppose the government, I’d appeal to lay down arms at least for the time needed to conduct these elections,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, a German diplomat who has headed three roundtable discussions in Ukraine in the last two weeks.
“We think it’s inappropriate to hold presidential elections in a neighboring country,” he said in an interview. “As for disrupting the elections, I wouldn’t use this term. I’d say we are opposing them through civilized methods, with the help of law enforcement and police. We are not advocates of violence.”
Neither side has given any indication that it would step back ahead of the voting.
Alexander Chernenko, who heads a nonprofit organization that trains election commissioners and monitors, said that the interim government must move faster to provide security. At least 5 percent of the region’s local election offices have been closed because of separatist threats, he said.
Valeriy Bolotov, head of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Luhansk, declared martial law in the territory on Thursday, the Kyiv Post reported. It was unclear what martial law would entail, but Bolotov said it would remain in effect until Ukrainian troops withdrew from the area. Luhansk separatists declared a curfew earlier this month.
Ukraine’s parliament has authorized national security forces to guard election offices in areas where local police have failed to do their jobs, either because they are outgunned or sympathetic to the separatists. But Chernenko said little has been done in practice so far.
In Moscow, meanwhile, the Defense Ministry issued another statement about Russian troop withdrawals, saying it has sent four trainloads of weapons and 15 transport planes away from the border area with eastern Ukraine.
In the end, election officials say they must rely on the courage of people such as Aleksandr Stryuk, who is one of the district election commissioners in the office shuttered last week.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that it has seen Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border but that it was not clear whether they were part of a pullout. Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in Shanghai on Wednesday that he had decided to pull his troops back “as an additional step to help create a favorable environment for the upcoming presidential election.”
“I am a businessman and doing this job not for the money,” he said. “But the main issue is people’s lives. If security is improved, we will continue our duty.”
He called the elections “a positive step” but also said that “it will be very difficult for us to build relations with those who come to power with punitive operations still underway in southeast Ukraine.”
Birnbaum reported from Kiev. Abigail Hauslohner in Moscow, Daniela Deane in London, and Aleksey Ryabchyn and Anastasiia Fedesova in Donetsk contributed to this report.
Russia’s conciliatory stance comes as Ukrainian leaders reported progress in a third session of roundtable national unity talks, held Wednesday in the shipyard city of Mykolaiv. Although the talks have sometimes appeared like theater, with grandstanding speeches broadcast on live television, they have given moderate regional representatives a chance to publicly vent their grievances.
A top Russian CEO said Thursday that sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow are harmful for business in countries that imposed them and in Russia.
“I would encourage politicians to solve political problems . . . first of all through diplomatic measures and not to cause damage to our economies,” Alexey Mordashov, chief executive of the metals firm Severstal, told an economic forum in St. Petersburg.
The United States and the European Union slapped travel bans and asset freezes on members of Putin’s entourage after Russia annexed Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region in March. They have warned of more crippling sanctions if Russia tries to grab more Ukrainian land or attempts to derail the elections.
Kunkle reported from Donetsk and Hauslohner from Moscow. Daniela Deane contributed to this report from London.
