Poroshenko: Ukraine conflict risks spiralling out of control

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/11/leaders-minsk-ukraine-peace-talks-heavy-fighting

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Related: Obama says Putin must abandon 'Soviet style' to end war in Ukraine

Ukraine’s president has warned that the separatist conflict in east Ukraine will spiral out of control if there is no de-escalation and ceasefire.

Petro Poroshenko was speaking as he arrived in Minsk for talks with the leaders of Russia, France and Germany aimed at hammering out a new peace deal on Ukraine.

“Either the situation goes down the road of de-escalation, ceasefire … or the situation goes out of control,” he said.

With Washington warning Putin that the costs of failure at a summit in Belarus would starkly increase for Moscow, and Barack Obama describing the Russian leader as a KGB veteran nostalgic for the days of Soviet empire, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, as well as Poroshenko and Putin, went to Minsk to haggle over the details of a proposed ceasefire and the status of the pro-Russia separatist region of eastern Ukraine.

“There is a glimmer of hope, but no more,” said Merkel’s spokesman, as European leaders played down hopes of a breakthrough.

Both sides redoubled their efforts on Wednesday to control key territory in the contested region around Donetsk and Luhansk, since a new demilitarised zone was a key element being negotiated in Minsk. More than 20 people were killed.

The number ocasualties has jumped as a result of the intensification of the conflict, which has claimed at least 5,400 lives. The United Nations reported 263 civilians were killed between 31 January and 5 February.

Poroshenko was reported to have told a government meeting in Kiev that he would not flinch from declaring martial law in Ukraine if the peace talks collapsed and resulted in an escalation of the conflict.

Senior officials from all sides meeting in Minsk ahead of the summit worked continuously for more than 24 hours trying to nail down the parameters of a pact that would define a new demarcation line between the separatists and government forces, demilitarise the territory on either side of the line and also focus on the political status of the region and its funding.

While Russian media reported agreement on a truce, this was denied in Kiev. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said there were several outstanding issues – including the terms of a ceasefire, how to monitor the Russia-Ukraine border, and the devolution of powers from Kiev to the breakaway Donbass region in the east. Two rebel leaders from Donbass were present in Minsk.

“It is really a last-chance negotiation,” Fabius told French radio. “There are a number of problems which remain to be resolved.”

The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday that 19 soldiers had been killed and 78 wounded defending the key railroad junction of Debaltseve, while five people were reported killed by shelling in rebel-held Donetsk.

According to Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman of Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” in the east, Debaltseve had been shelled more than 10 times by mortars, tanks and Grad incendiary rockets on Wednesday, and rebels twice tried to storm Ukrainian positions.

Fighting has raged for weeks around the strategic town, which is reportedly almost completely surrounded by rebel forces. Debaltseve’s police chief was killed on Tuesday when a sabotage-reconnaissance group attempted to capture the police station, but police officers and volunteer battalion fighters fended off the attack, the interior ministry said on Wednesday. There were also unconfirmed reports of military planes flying overhead.

Rebel forces claimed earlier this week to have completely cut off the Ukrainian forces in Debaltseve. A Russian television report showed fighters entering the village and capturing wounded Ukrainian soldiers on the road leading out of Debaltseve, along which destroyed vehicles were still smoking. The rebels also claimed to have killed two colonels on the road, one of whom was the first deputy head of the anti-terrorist operation.

But speaking to ministers on Wednesday, the Ukraine defence minister, Stepan Poltorak, said reports that Debaltsevo was completely surrounded were made up and that weapons and ammunition were still being supplied to the troops in the town. The anti-terrorist operation headquarters denied that two colonels had been killed.

Fighting continued on another front as part of a Ukrainian offensive begun on Tuesday near Mariupol, which has been quiet apart from a rocket attack in January, under the personal supervision of the security council head, Oleksandr Turchynov.

Ukrainian troops have been pushing east along the coast of the Azov Sea toward rebel-held Novoazovsk and the Russan border. The volunteer battalion Azov, infamous for the neo-Nazi views of some of its members, was reportedly attempting to capture the village of Sakhanka on Wednesday.

Lysenko said Kiev’s troops had “cleaned fighters out of six villages” and destroyed several rebel checkpoints and a weapons cache near Mariupol. He claimed 87 rebel fighters had been killed, and 42 military vehicles, 14 multiple rocket launcher systems and 16 armoured fighting vehicles destroyed, although Kiev has been known to exaggerate its victories in the past.

Poroshenko said his forces had “moved the frontline to correspond exactly to the Minsk memorandum as a result of the counter-offensive” near Mariupol.

There were also reports of shelling in rebel-controlled Donetsk. At least five people were killed and nine wounded when mortar fire reportedly hit a major bus station in the city on Wednesday. The breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic blamed Ukrainian forces, calling the attack a “planned diversion”.

A representative of the anti-terrorist operation in the east told journalists all areas of Donetsk were “within the impact zone of Ukrainian artillery” but said its forces were not firing into areas where civilians were located and had not shelled the bus station.

Putin appeared to be in the stronger position to dictate the terms of any deal in Minsk, while Poroshenko appears increasingly weakened and politically beleaguered. But the weakness of the Ukrainian leader may make it difficult to make too many concessions to the Kremlin which is seeking to entrench Russian influence over the breakaway region and to freeze a larger tract of territory under the separatists’ control.

France looked inclined to agree to Putin’s demands for the sake of peace, while Merkel, the main western negotiator with the Russians, was certain to deliver robust and detailed arguments in favour of Ukraine.

“I would like to emphasise that I, the government, and the [parliament] are prepared to take a decision declaring martial law on the teritory of the entire country,” Poroshenko was quoted as saying in Kiev. “In no case will I flinch from this decision if the irresponsible actions of the aggressor lead to a serious escalation of the conflict.”

Obama rounded unusually personally on Putin. “He has a foot very much in the Soviet past. That’s how he came of age. He ran the KGB,” the US president told Buzzfeed News. “I think he looks at problems through this cold war lens … He’s missed some opportunities for Russia ... to represent something different than the old Soviet-style aggression ... If Russia is doing badly, the concern is that they revert to old expansionist ideas.”