Ukraine’s faltering peace deal suffered fresh setbacks on Saturday when Kiev reported the deaths of six soldiers and accused Moscow of abetting an attack on one of its Russian consulates.
The latest fatalities in the twisting and hotly disputed zone separating Ukrainian forces from their pro-Russian foes in the separatist east add to the strains of a February truce designed to end one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts in decades.
The 14-month war has claimed nearly 6,500 lives and turned Russian President Vladimir Putin into an increasingly isolated figure blamed for pulling a Cold War-era pall over Moscow’s relations with the West.
It has also driven more than 1 million people from their homes and left Ukraine — anxious to rebuild after decades of post-Soviet neglect — without access to much of its industrial heartland and far fewer opportunities for growth.
The February accords that the leaders of Germany and France effectively forced upon Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had initially helped limit the fighting to hot spots whose status had been under dispute from the start.
COMBAT RESUMES
However, last week saw intense mortar and artillery fire return to previously quiet regions, claiming more than 35 lives.
Western monitors said the clashes came after both sides pulled their heaviest guns up to the truce line in apparent preparation for a hot summer campaign.
Saturday’s casualties bring to about 50 the number of people reported killed this month — a figure that fails to include all the deaths suffered by the secretive and partially splintered rebel command.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said overnight clashes had been especially heavy around the fragmented remains of the once-gleaming airport on the outskirts of the separatists’ de facto capital, Donetsk.
Eastern Ukraine’s busiest air hub turned into a symbolic war prize that Kiev lost hundreds of soldiers defending until January. Neighborhoods surrounding the airport suffer continual shelling to this day.
RESTIVE AIRPORT
“The situation near the airport is particularly restive,” Lysenko told reporters. “Our enemies have thrown tanks, infantry combat vehicles and artillery into battle.”
A separate Kiev statement said: “The past few days have seen the highest rate of activity from pro-Russian [rebels] in a month.”
Donetsk insurgents blamed Kiev for shelling the very regions mentioned by Lysenko. They also accused Poroshenko’s forces of committing “99 ceasefire violations” since Friday.
The battlefield bloodshed has been compounded by tensions surrounding the occasion of Friday’s Russia Day holiday.
Ukrainian nationalists interrupted a celebratory reception at the Russian consulate in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Thursday evening by pelting the building with blue paint and eggs.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Ukraine’s police of taking no action and Kiev of “once again flagrantly violating its international obligations under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.”
‘BARBARIANS’
A group of what Kiev denounced as “barbarians” took their revenge on Ukraine’s own consulate building in the western Russian city of Rostov-on-Don overnight.
Footage filmed by Life News — a Russian TV station with close links to the powerful state security service — showed the Ukrainian building covered in green paint and one of its windows broken.
The vandals had torn down the consulate’s coat of arms and left behind empty cartons of eggs and remains of tomatoes used to pelt the building before the Kremlin-linked station’s crew arrived on the scene.
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin condemned the incident, which he called another example of Russian “aggression.”
“The Russian propaganda taped everything. The police gave the barbarians the time to do their deed,” Klimkin tweeted. “Does Russia’s aggression have no end?”
However, local member of parliament Yekaterina Stenyakina said the incident was staged by local Ukrainians in an attempt to further discredit Russia’s image on the global stage.
“The number of Ukrainian citizens in the Rostov region is very high,” she tweeted.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was