Separatists shoot down Ukrainian military helicopter in Slovyansk
Rebels down Ukrainian chopper as internal tensions ignite
(about 5 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Pro-Russian separatists shot down a Ukrainian military helicopter Thursday, killing at least 12 soldiers including a senior leader of Ukraine’s efforts to recapture control of its rebellious east.
DONETSK, Ukraine — Pro-Russian separatists on Thursday dealt a heavy blow to Ukrainian military efforts to win back the rebellious east, even as tensions between insurgent factions spilled into the open in this anxious regional capital’s downtown.
A rebel leader, meanwhile, said his fighters were holding four election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The blow came when separatists wielding a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher scored a direct strike against a Ukrainian military helicopter ferrying a senior commander of the government’s counterterrorism operation.
Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, confirmed in a speech to parliament that the military transport helicopter was downed, inflicting a significant loss on government forces. He said 14 military personnel on board were killed, including a general.
Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, confirmed in a speech to parliament that the transport helicopter was downed. He said 14 military personnel aboard were killed, including Serhiy Kulchytskiy, a general who had served in the Soviet army and was in charge of combat training for Ukraine’s National Guard.
The Ukrainian National Guard later issued a statement saying that 12 people were killed and that one soldier survived and was in critical condition. The reason for the discrepancy in the death toll was not immediately explained.
Turchynov said “terrorists” brought down the helicopter with a shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile, which he suggested had been supplied by Russia.
Turchynov said the helicopter was brought down by “terrorists” with a shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile, which he suggested had been supplied by Russia. He identified the dead general as Serhiy Kulchytskiy, who had formerly served in the Soviet army and was in charge of combat training for Ukraine’s National Guard.
The attack coincided with apparent infighting between eastern Ukraine’s separatists that could signal an even deeper role for Russia in the conflict.
The helicopter wa shot down amid heavy fighting Thursday in Slovyansk, a city about 100 miles west of the Russian border that has been the scene of recent clashes between separatists and government troops. It was flying troops to positions set up by Ukrainian forces on a hill outside the city, Turchynov told parliament.
The Vostok battalion, a militia known to include Chechen and other Russian fighters that has only recently emerged as a major force, overtook the headquarters of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in the heart of this city of 1 million on Thursday.
“Our armed forces, our security forces will complete their job against terrorism,” Turchynov said. “And all the criminals who are now funded by the Russian Federation will be destroyed or sit in the dock.” The emotional speech was followed by a minute of silence in parliament.
A video posted on a Donetsk news Web site showed men in camouflage setting up heavy weaponry outside the seized building that serves as the separatist headquarters. Officials with the Donetsk People’s Republic, the group that originally overran the building last month, streamed through the exits, with some expressing surprise and dismay at being forced to leave by putative allies.
An Associated Press reporter saw the helicopter go down amid a trail of black smoke and heard gunshots near the crash site as a Ukrainian air force jet circled overhead, the news agency said.
Once the building had been cleared, heavily armed Vostok forces brought in backhoes and dump trucks to clear the makeshift barricades that have ringed the building for nearly two months. They said they planned to install more professional defenses. They also showed off what they said were looted goods from a local grocery store that they found inside the building.
A video posted online appeared to show the attack, with the helicopter spiraling downward in flames.
A spokeswoman for the Donetsk People’s Republic later denied that there was any conflict among the separatists and said the forces were simply working to weed out criminals.
“It was part of a routine troop rotation,” said a senior Ukrainian security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.
The Ukrainian National Guard said in its statement that the aircraft was an Mi-8 transport helicopter that was fired upon from a forest.
After the attack, the Ukrainian military used artillery and fighter jets to bombard the area from which the missile was fired, “destroying” a group of “criminals,” the National Guard said.
Thursday’s clashes coincided with more apparent infighting between eastern Ukraine’s separatists. The pro-Russian Vostok battalion, a militia known to include Chechen and other Russian fighters, besieged the headquarters of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” in the separatist enclave of Donetsk on Thursday, local journalists reported.
A video posted on a Donetsk news Web site showed men in camouflage setting up weaponry that pointed in the direction of the seized office building that serves as separatist headquarters. Office workers streamed out of the building.
A spokeswoman for the Donetsk People’s Republic denied that there was any conflict among the separatists and said the forces were simply working to weed out criminals.
“We are keeping order in the building,” said Klavdia Kulbatskaya, the spokeswoman. “Our authorities are in control of the situation. Soon we will obtain order in the premises. We don’t want to be associated with thugs and marauders.”
“We are keeping order in the building,” said Klavdia Kulbatskaya, the spokeswoman. “Our authorities are in control of the situation. Soon we will obtain order in the premises. We don’t want to be associated with thugs and marauders.”
Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported Thursday that 33 of the separatist fighters killed during fierce clashes outside the Donetsk airport on Monday were Russian nationals.
But there have been divisions in the rebel movement for some time, and varying degrees of Russian influence may be a crucial source of tension. Although both Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of orchestrating insurrection in the east, some of the rebel factions have at times openly defied Moscow’s publicly stated will.
“All of those dead have been identified,” said Alexander Borodai, who calls himself the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, according to RIA Novosti. Russian media reported that the bodies would soon be returned to Russia.
The apparent rise of the Vostok battalion may reflect a bid by Russia to reassert its authority. The group is thought to have helped orchestrate an attack this week on the Donetsk airport, which prompted a furious response from the Ukrainian military that left scores of rebels dead.
It was unclear how many of the dead fighters were Ukrainian. RIA Novosti reported that more than 100 people were killed in the violence, some of them civilians.
In a sign of Russia’s deep involvement in the fighting here, the country’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported Thursday that 33 of those killed Monday were Russian nationals.
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-proclaimed “people’s mayor” of Slovyansk, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the four election monitors — a Dane, an Estonian, a Swiss and a Turk — were “fine” and that the group was in negotiations with the OSCE to release them. The OSCE said it lost contact with the team Monday evening, a day after Ukraine’s presidential and mayoral elections.
“All of those dead have been identified,” said Alexander Borodai, who calls himself the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, according to RIA Novosti. Russian news media reported that the bodies would soon be returned to Russia.
He said his men had advised OSCE monitors not to travel across the embattled east but that the captured monitors had been the “most-zealous” ones. Other monitors have been kidnapped, held for several hours, and then released.
It was unclear how many of the dead fighters were Ukrainian. RIA Novosti reported that more than 100 people were killed, including civilians.
Separatists, who have seized government buildings and declared sovereign republics in two eastern regions, prevented voting in most of eastern Ukraine in Sunday’s elections. The OSCE said it lost contact with the team in the Donetsk region Monday evening.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry pressed his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to “end all support for separatists, denounce their actions and call on them to lay down their arms,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday.
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said Thursday that the Ukrainian government “bears the most responsibility” for the disappearance of the OSCE monitors, Interfax reported.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has denied any Russian government involvement in the insurgency, blamed the violence on Ukraine and called on the Ukrainian military to end its “fratricidal war.”
Churkin accused Kiev of failing to complete procedures that would have granted the monitors “immunity” in Ukraine, thus leaving them legally vulnerable.
The turmoil continued Thursday with the downing of the helicopter amid heavy fighting in Slovyansk, a city about 100 miles west of the Russian border that has been the scene of recent clashes between separatists and government troops. The chopper was flying Ukrainian troops to positions set up on a hill outside the city, Turchynov told parliament.
A fierce two-day clash between the separatists and Ukrainian military forces for control of Donetsk’s international airport following the election killed about 50 people, most of them separatists. President-elect Petro Poroshenko said the nation’s fight to regain control of the country he promised to unite had “finally really begun.”
“Our armed forces, our security forces will complete their job against terrorism,” he said. “And all the criminals who are now funded by the Russian Federation will be destroyed or sit in the dock.” The emotional speech was followed by a minute of silence in parliament.
Poroshenko, a 48-year-old billionaire and one of Ukraine’s richest men, has vowed to quickly crush the rebellion by the separatists, whom he has likened to Somali pirates. He also said he wants to start talking with Russia, which the West believes is fomenting the unrest across eastern Ukraine.
An Associated Press reporter saw the helicopter go down amid a trail of black smoke and heard gunshots near the crash site as a Ukrainian air force jet circled overhead, the news agency said.
Poroshenko has also promised closer ties with the West.
A video posted online appeared to show the attack, with the helicopter spiraling downward in flames.
In a statement Thursday, the newly elected president said he wants to sign an economic agreement with the European Union shortly after he takes office in early June.
The Ukrainian National Guard said in a statement that the Mi-8 transport helicopter was fired upon from a forest.
“The signing and enactment of the agreement, which, in fact, is part of Ukraine’s modernization plan, as well as its implementation, would help pursue anti-corruption measures and implement the reforms package within a very short period of time,” Poroshenko said in the statement.
The statement said 12 people were killed, compared with the 14 announced by Turchynov. The discrepancy in the death toll was not immediately explained.
Denis Pushilin, a leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, issued a defiant call Wednesday to continue resistance against Kiev. He urged the area’s miners to join the fight.
After the attack, the military used artillery and fighter jets to bombard the area from where the missile was fired, “destroying” a group of “criminals,” the National Guard said.
“We are not going to leave, and we are not going to surrender. This is our land and our home,” Pushilin told a pro-separatist rally of a few hundred people in Donetsk’s Lenin Square. “We are getting stronger and stronger.”
As the fighting raged, Vyacheslav Ponomariov, the self-proclaimed “people’s mayor” of Slovyansk, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that his group was holding four election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who disappeared Monday.
As he spoke, surrounded by bodyguards and wearing a bulletproof vest under his blue jacket, a Ukrainian military jet roared in the distance above the city’s international airport, which has been closed since Monday’s heavy fighting.
The four — a Dane, an Estonian, a Swiss and a Turk — were “fine” and his group was in negotiations with the OSCE to release them, Ponomariov said. The group had abducted another team of OSCE monitors last month.
Pushilin said the rebels would ignore Ukrainian ultimatums to lay down their arms. He also said more volunteers — “our brothers” — were coming over the borders of friendly regions and states into Donetsk as reinforcements.
He said that his men had advised OSCE monitors not to travel across the embattled east but that the captured monitors had been the “most zealous” ones. Other monitors have been kidnapped, held for several hours and then released.
Some Ukrainian officials — and local residents who have been close enough to hear the accents of fighters — have charged that Russia has enabled battle-hardened fighters from South Ossetia and Chechnya to cross the border and join the conflict. Ramzan Kadyrov, a Chechen regional leader who is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday denied sending militants into Ukraine.
Separatists, who have seized government buildings and declared sovereign republics in two eastern regions, prevented voting in most of eastern Ukraine in Sunday’s presidential election.
“Ukrainian sources are spreading reports that some ‘Chechen units’ from Russia have broken into Donetsk. I am officially declaring that this does not correspond to the facts,” Kadyrov said in an Instagram posting. But he also said some Chechens might have gone to Ukraine on “personal business.”
Birnbaum reported from Kiev. Abigail Hauslohner in Moscow, Alex Ryabchyn in Kiev and Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.
Hauslohner reported from Moscow and Deane from London.
