Ukrainian forces battered the outer suburbs of the rebel stronghold of Luhansk on Sunday, pushing deeper than ever into the city, but falling short of retaking it as immediate hopes of a truce resting on a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that seemed on the cards on the sidelines of the World Cup final in Rio de Janeiro was cancelled.
The Ukrainian presidency early on Sunday said that Poroshenko was forced to cancel his attendance at the World Cup and second meeting with his Russian counterpart “considering the situation currently happening in Ukraine.”
Putin instead met German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks the Kremlin said ended with a call on the warring sides to issue “a statement as soon as possible concerning a ceasefire, a prisoner swap and the return of [international] monitors” to eastern Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
A German government spokesman said Putin and Merkel suggested that Kiev and the separatists launch their discussions “by video conference.”
Citing a Putin spokesman, Reuters said the two leaders had called for the resumption of political negotiations on Ukraine, but had added that for that to happen, a ceasefire needed to be declared and honored by all sides.
Poroshenko declared a unilateral ceasefire last month, but then called it off, saying the rebels had refused to abide by it and had used the truce merely to regroup and rearm.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian forces pounded rebel positions in an area called Yuvileiny just west of Luhansk, a rebel spokeswoman and residents said. Some accounts said the forces had managed to establish a checkpoint there, although a Ukrainian military spokesman could not confirm that.
Some news reports said that the government forces had retaken the city, which is crucial for the survival of the pro-Russian insurgency there in part because of its proximity to the Russian border. However, residents and rebels on Sunday evening said that the city was still in rebel hands.
“So far, our forces are holding them back,” said a spokeswoman for the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, who asked not to be identified by name for her safety.
Andrei Anoshin, a journalist for Realnaya Gazeta, a newspaper in Luhansk, said that the city had been shelled intensely for the past week, and that many civilians had been killed.
“Today wasn’t that different from other days,” Anoshin said, adding that in the city center, “it is tense, but militarily calm.”
The military advances came as relations between Ukraine and Russia fell to a new low. On Sunday, a Russian citizen was killed on Russian soil by what the Russian government said was an errant Ukrainian shell. Ukraine denied firing a shell into Russian territory. Russia said the episode could have “irreversible consequences.”
The Russian news agency Interfax cited an unnamed rebel in Luhansk as saying the Ukrainian forces had begun to storm the city from an area called Alexandrovka. The rebel said the attack included not only artillery fire, but also dozens of tanks and two fighter helicopters. It was impossible to verify the report.
Three residents interviewed on Sunday said they had seen neither tanks nor helicopters.
In Donetsk, local emergency worker Alexander Ryaboshapka said seven people were killed on Saturday in a rocket attack in the Petrovsky neighborhood. One of them was a young girl. The Ukrainian military denied responsibility for the attack. The rockets landed in such a way that suggested that they had been fired from the south, where Ukrainian forces are based. Still, some residents said on Sunday that the rockets had been fired from rebel positions.
The attack caused residents to flee the neighborhood, and on Sunday, it was silent. Vera Alexeyevna, a retired nurse, said she and her husband, both pensioners, did not have the money to leave, she said, so they had nothing to do but sweep up and hope.
“How long will this go on? Please tell me how long,” she said, wiping tears from her face.
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