Ukraine rebels launch new offensive
Pro-Kremlin rebels announced a major new offensive yesterday after Grad rocket fire killed at least 30 people in a strategic government-held Ukrainian port linking separatist territory with Russian-occupied Crimea.
The local mayor’s office said 97 people were also wounded in the city of Mariupol by dozens of long-distance rockets that smashed into a packed residential district early in the morning and then again shortly after noon.
“Obviously, everyone in the city is very scared,” Mariupol native Eduard told AFP.
A fellow resident named Pavlo described dazed survivors helping wounded victims climb out from the concrete rubble of Soviet-era apartment blocks and navigate the shattered glass-covered streets.
“Today, we launched an offensive against Mariupol,” Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency quoted Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko as saying.
But he added a few hours later that his forces were still “saving their strength” and had “conducted no active operations in Mariupol.” But he called the potential capture of the industrial port “the best tribute possible for all our dead.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk immediately asked the UN Security Council to censure Russia for allegedly spearheading the militants’ advance on the biggest pro-Kyiv city left standing in the decimated war zone.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed in a separate statement to deliver a “full victory” over the Russian-backed force.
The spiralling violence also drew condemnation from both the European Union and OSCE monitors who are trying to mediate an end to one of the continent’s deadliest and most diplomatically-explosive crises since the Cold War.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned in Brussels that the latest escalation “would inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between the EU and Russia.”
A rebel assault on the port in August saw Kyiv repel the attack at a heavy cost that prompted President Poroshenko to agree to a September 5 ceasefire.
That truce was followed by still more clashes that killed at least 1,500 people and was ultimately rejected by the rebels on Friday.
The separatist leader of Donetsk said on Friday he was ripping up the September agreement and launching an offensive aimed at seizing eastern lands still controlled by the pro-Western authorities in Kyiv.
His announcement came just a day after his men scored their most symbolic victory to date by flushing out Ukrainian troops from a long-disputed airport in Donetsk that Kyiv had clung on to since May.
Western diplomats linked that advance to a new infusion of Russian troops — firmly denied by the Kremlin — designed to expand separatist holdings before the singing of a final truce and land demarcation agreement.