Ukraine separatists plan elections in blow to Kyiv
A pro-Russian rebel walks past yesterday what fellow rebels say is a grave with five bodies, in the town of Nizhnaya Krinka.
AFP/Donetsk
Pro-Russian rebels have announced that they will stage their own elections in just six weeks, raising the stakes in a stand-off with Kyiv despite both sides moving to end five months of deadly fighting.
The self-proclaimed “Donetsk” and “Luhansk People’s Republics” said that they would hold simultaneous votes on November 2 to choose their leaders and “Supreme Soviets” or parliaments.
The surprise announcements are a slap in the face for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who only a week ago offered the separatist regions limited self-rule in a major concession to try to forge peace.
There was no immediate comment from his office.
Just hours earlier, insurgent leaders said that they were withdrawing their big guns from the frontline under a peace plan forged with Kyiv aimed at ending a conflict that has now killed well over 3,200 people since April.
AFP journalists said that they saw tanks moving back from an area near Donetsk – the main rebel stronghold – although fighting was reported around the city’s airport.
“We have withdrawn artillery but only in those areas where the Ukrainian regular units have done the same,” Donetsk “prime minister” Alexander Zakharchenko told the Interfax news agency.
Ukraine had said on Monday that it was starting a pullback under the terms of the deal signed in Minsk on Saturday that calls for both sides to withdraw from the frontline and establish a 30km wide demilitarised zone.
Hopes for an end to violence that has devastated many towns across Ukraine’s rustbelt had been kindled by an initial European-brokered truce signed by Moscow as well as Kyiv and the rebels on September 5.
Then last Tuesday, Ukrainian lawmakers adopted legislation offering the rebels broader autonomy for three years and local elections on December 7.
Poroshenko said the “special status” law was the only way out of a conflict that has threatened Ukraine’s very survival in the face of what Kyiv views as Russia’s expansionist threat after its annexation of Crimea in March.
The war has sent the already-struggling economy to the brink of collapse, and Ukraine is relying on a $27bn (€21bn) international bailout to stay afloat.
The national currency the hryvnia has been hovering around historic lows after plunging more than 40% this year, which Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk blamed on “panic” and speculation over the uncertain situation in the east.
The Minsk deal had put on the back burner all issues concerning claims by the separatist regions for full independence from their foes in Kyiv.
The separatists launched their insurrection in April, seizing towns and cities across the east and holding disputed independence referendums in May for Donetsk and Luhansk.
A top UN rights official said yesterday that the death toll from the conflict now stood at 3,245 plus the 298 victims of the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet in July (see report above).
The level of violence appeared to have subsided overall since Saturday.
However Ukrainian officials said 40 civilians and soldiers had been killed in almost daily shelling and exchanges of fire since the initial September 5 truce.
Not everything’s clear with the ceasefire,” Zakharchenko said. “Firing from the Ukrainian side is still going on as before. I would call this a slow-moving military operation.”
Poroshenko agreed to the peace plan after several rounds of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is blamed by Kyiv and the West for fomenting the rebellion by sending in elite troops and heavy weapons.
Kyiv signed up to the deal after the rebels – apparently with Russian military backing – swept across the southeast towards the Sea of Azov, delivering a series of battlefield defeats to government.
Nato says that Russia still has troops in Ukraine, although Moscow denies ever sending its forces across the border.
The self-rule legislation has been derided both by nationalist politicians who accuse Poroshenko of conceding defeat to the Kremlin, and by the rebels who feel they are no longer bound to Kyiv.
About 7mn people live in the Donetsk and Luhansk region, and the coal and steel region accounts for about a quarter of national exports.
But the separatists do not hold sway over the entire area.
The rebel-held zones stretch about 230km from Luhgansk south to the Sea of Azov and around 160km from Donetsk eastwards to the Russian border, according to AFP calculations based on Ukrainian military maps.
