Ukrainian president dissolves parliament, accuses some MPs of allying with pro …

Ukraine’s president on Monday dissolved parliament and called for early
elections in October as his country continues to battle a pro-Russian insurgency
in its eastern regions.

In a statement on his website, President Petro Poroshenko said snap elections
would be held Oct. 26.

Mr. Poroshenko said the dissolution, which was prefigured by the breakup of
the majority coalition last month, was in line with “the expectations of the
vast majority of the citizens of Ukraine” and called it a move toward
“cleansing” the parliament.

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Many members of parliament “are allies of the militants-separatists,” Mr.
Poroshenko said, referring to the pro-Russian rebels who have battled government
troops in the country’s east since April.

The Party of Regions, which is backed by much of the country’s industrial,
Russian-speaking east and was supported by pro-Russian ex-president Viktor
Yanukovych, was the largest party in parliament before Mr. Yanukovych fled the
country in the wake of massive protests in February and still has a substantial
presence.

Mr. Poroshenko emphasized the need to elect new leaders from the war-torn
areas of east Ukraine in order to represent the region in the new government. It
wasn’t clear how it would be possible to conduct elections at such short notice
in Donetsk and Lugansk, where hundreds of thousands have fled their homes and
shelling between rebel and government forces continues daily.

Over the past month, Ukrainian forces have made substantial inroads against
pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, taking control of several sizable
towns and cities that had been under rebel control since April, when the clashes
began.

But
the advances have come at a high cost – more than 2,000 civilians reportedly
killed and at least 726 Ukrainian servicemen. There is no independent figure for
the number of rebel dead.

Many have expressed hopes ahead of a summit Tuesday in Minsk, Belarus, that
includes both Mr. Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and could be
aimed at pressuring Ukraine into seeking a negotiated end to the conflict rather
than a military victory.

Earlier Monday, a Ukrainian official said a column of Russian tanks and
armoured vehicles entered southeastern Ukraine – a move that brings the conflict
to an area that has so far escaped the intense fighting of recent weeks.

Colonel Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council,
told reporters that the column of 10 tanks, two armoured vehicles and two trucks
crossed the border near the village of Shcherbak and that shells were fired from
Russia toward the nearby city of Novoazovsk. He said they were Russian military
vehicles bearing the flags of the separatist Donetsk rebels. The village is in
the Donetsk region, but not under the control of the rebels.

The
Ukrainian National Guard later said two of the tanks had been
destroyed.

In
Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday he had no information
about the column.

Russia announced plans, meanwhile, to send a second aid convoy into
rebel-held eastern Ukraine, where months of fighting have left many residential
buildings in ruins.

Russia’s unilateral dispatch of more than 200 trucks into Ukraine on Friday
was denounced by the Ukrainian government as an invasion and condemned by the
United States, the European Union and NATO. Even though the tractor-trailers
returned to Russia without incident Saturday, the announcement of another convoy
was likely to raise new suspicions.

Mr.
Lavrov said the food, water and other goods the convoy delivered Friday to the
hard-hit rebel city of Lugansk were being distributed Monday and that Red Cross
workers were involved in talks on how best to do that. There was no immediate
confirmation from the Red Cross.

In
sending in the first convoy, Russia said it had lost patience with what it
called Ukraine’s stalling tactics. It claimed that soon “there will no longer be
anyone left to help” in Lugansk, where weeks of heavy shelling have cut off
power, water and phone service and made food scarce.

The
Ukrainian government had said the aid convoy was a ploy by Russia to get
supplies to the rebels and slow down the government’s military
advances.

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