Kremlin Says Ukraine Clashes Destroy ‘All Hope’ for Diplomatic Agreement
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ALAN COWELL
A Ukrainian sldiers stand guard near destroyed Pro-Russian check-point, Andreevka, near Slovyansk, east UA
The Kremlin said Friday that “all hope” for an internationally negotiated settlement in Ukraine had been destroyed, hours after two Ukrainian helicopters were shot down as government forces launched an assault to dislodge pro-Russian separatists from the eastern city of Slovyansk.
A spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Dmitri S. Peskov, told news agencies that the “punitive operation” against the separatists’ eastern stronghold effectively had destroyed “all hope for the viability of the Geneva agreements” negotiated in the Swiss city on April 17 by the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union, which were intended to defuse the crisis.
Ukrainian soldiers take position at a checkpoint they seized in the early morning in the village of Andreevka, 7km from the centre of Slovyansk.
The agreements, which had never taken deep root, had become increasingly frayed in recent days. Much of eastern Ukraine slipped beyond the control of the authorities in Kiev as militants took control of a series of official buildings and captured a German-led team of military observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
After a conversation on Thursday with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Putin dispatched an envoy, Vladimir Lukin, to Slovyansk to seek the release of the observers. Initially, the Kremlin spokesman said there were concerns about his safety, but the Russian news agency Interfax reported later that he was unharmed.
Mr. Peskov was speaking shortly after the Defense Ministry in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, acknowledged the loss of two military helicopters. The Ukrainian domestic-intelligence agency, S.B.U., said the apparent use of shoulder-fired missiles against one of the helicopters showed that the separatists had outside support.
The Defense Ministry said two members of the Ukrainian armed forces were killed. News reports from Slovyansk also quoted separatist officials as saying one militant was killed in the attacks, which came a day after Mr. Putin called for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from their own territory in the southeast as a prelude to a broad national dialogue on political reform.
Vyachislav Ponomaryov, the self-appointed mayor of Slovyansk, was quoted as telling Interfax on Friday that his forces had shot down two helicopters. One of the pilots was killed and another was captured, he said. Mr. Ponomaryov said the helicopters had fired missiles into the city, but there were no immediate reports to confirm his account.
A wounded Ukrainian pilot taken captive by insurgents in Slovyansk.
According to various Russian media outlets, Ukrainian forces were “storming” the separatist stronghold, including making assaults on checkpoints ringing Slovyansk patrolled by pro-Russian militias.
The fighting described in the reports would be a potentially perilous escalation in a tinderbox region, where Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops just across the border on what it has called training maneuvers. But there has been little direct corroboration of the scale and targets of the offensive.
While Moscow says its forces are not active in eastern Ukraine, Reuters quoted the S.B.U. as saying that the use of missiles to shoot down the helicopters was proof that opposition forces were “not local civilians, as the Russian government says, armed only with guns taken from hunting stores.”
The S.B.U. said that a military Mi-24 helicopter was shot down, killing one airman, and that a second Mi-24 flying in tandem was forced to land. A third helicopter carrying medics was also hit, Reuters reported.
In a Facebook posting, Arsen Avakov, the interim interior minister of Ukraine, said the “active phase” of the assault had begun at 4.30 a.m. on Friday, with special forces and other units ringing the city and overrunning nine checkpoints. The posting said that there were casualties among air force personnel and that there was a “real fight with professional mercenaries” underway.
Despite the assertions on both sides, and accounts on Russian television showing what were said to be separatist forces taking up position, there was no footage of actual combat by midday.
Mr. Avakov accused “terrorists” of using civilians as human shields and said government forces were avoiding residential targets. The Facebook posting urged citizens to stay home and avoid standing next to windows.
For weeks, the Kiev authorities have displayed increasing frustration at their inability to assert their authority in the east.
On Thursday, the acting Ukrainian president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, issued a decree reinstating military conscription, saying men between the ages of 18 and 24 would be drafted. The decree said the move was intended to halt the deterioration of public order, prevent the seizure of more state buildings and maintain the armed forces — estimated to total no more than 70,000 men — in “the highest state of readiness for combat.”
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