UPDATE 2-Ukrainian forces reclaim port city from rebels
* Separatist rebels control territory in east Ukraine
* Government forces retake Mariupol, parts of border
* Ukraine ready to compromise on gas price
(Changes dateline, adds description of scene of fighting in
Mariupol and progress on gas talks)
MARIUPOL, Ukraine, June 13 (Reuters) – The Ukrainian flag
fluttered over the regional headquarters of Mariupol on Friday
after government forces reclaimed the port city from pro-Russian
separatists in heavy fighting and said they had regained control
of a long stretch of the border with Russia.
The advances are significant victories for the pro-European
leadership in a military operation to crush the armed rebellion,
which began in east Ukraine in April, and hold the former Soviet
republic of 45 million together.
In central Mariupol, police cordoned off several streets,
where roadblocks of sandbags and concrete blocks, once manned by
rebels, were riddled with bullet-holes and the burnt-out hulk of
an armoured personnel carrier with rebel insignia smouldered.
“At 10:34 a.m. (0734 GMT) the Ukrainian flag was raised over
City Hall in Mariupol,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on
Facebook, less than six hours after the attack began on the city
of 500,000, Ukraine’s biggest Azov Sea port.
A ministry aide said the government forces stormed the
rebels after they were surrounded and given 10 minutes to
surrender. At least five separatists and two servicemen were
killed in the battle before many of the rebels fled.
A group of around 100 Mariupol citizens, who had gathered in
the town centre to show their opposition to the government’s
actions, exchanged obscenities and crude gestures with Ukrainian
soldiers, who were driving through town in a column of armoured
trucks.
“The government brought everything here, including a
cannon… people were not allowed to come and witness how the
government was shooting its own citizens,” 52-year-old Andrei
Nikodimovich said.
Mariupol, which has changed hands several times in weeks of
conflict, is strategically important because it lies on major
roads from the southeastern border with Russia into the rest of
Ukraine and steel is exported through the port.
Regaining control of the long and winding frontier is also
vital for the government because it accuses Moscow of allowing
the rebels to bring tanks, other armoured vehicles and guns
across the porous border.
Avakov said the government forces had won back control of a
120-km (75-mile) stretch of the border that had fallen to the
rebels, but it was unclear who controlled other parts of the
some 2,000-km frontier.
UKRAINIAN GAS COMPROMISE
The rebels rose up in the Russian-speaking east and
southeast after Russia annexed Crimea in March following the
overthrow of Moscow-leaning President Viktor Yanukovich, who had
triggered protests by spurning trade and political pacts that
would have deepened ties with the European Union.
The new president, Petro Poroshenko, intensified the
military operation against the rebels after he was elected on
May 25 but is also trying to win support for a peace plan.
On Friday a separatist leader Denis Pushilin said he was
potentially open to the idea of talks provided there were
mediators present, including Russia.
“If an international organisation were also involved that
would be a plus too,” he said in an interview on Russian
television.
Poroshenko’s aides say progress has been made at initial
meetings with a Russian envoy and that any immediate threat of a
Russian invasion has receded.
Moreover, Ukraine said on Friday it was ready to pay a
compromise price of $326 per 1,000 cubic metres for Russian
natural gas to avert the threat of Moscow cutting off supplies
and allow time to reach a long-term pricing agreement.
Moscow demanded $485 per 1,000 cubic metres at the start of
the negotiations – European customers last year paid Gazprom
$387 per 1,000 cubic metres – before a discount of $100 per
1,000 cubic metres.
The sides have disagreed over how much Ukraine should pay for
its gas, and Russian state gas exporter Gazprom has
threatened to turn off the taps to Kyiv if it does not start
paying billions of dollars in debts by Monday. This could
disrupt supplies to the European Union as it gets about half its
gas imports from Russia, half of them via Ukraine.
Political ties have also been strained by the appearance of
several tanks in east Ukraine. Avakov accused Russia on Thursday
of allowing the rebels to bring them across the border and
Poroshenko told Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone that
the situation was “unacceptable.”
Evidence that Russia is directly assisting the rebels
militarily would implicate Moscow in the uprising, making a
mockery of its denials of a role in the fighting.
Russia did not immediately respond to the accusations and it
was not clear how Putin reacted to Poroshenko by phone.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Pavel Polityuk; additional
reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Natalia Zinets; writing by
Timothy Heritage and Alessandra Prentice; editing by Jon Boyle)
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