Ukrainian forces have raised their national flag over a police station in the city of Luhansk which was under rebel control for months, Kiev said yesterday, in what could be a breakthrough in Ukraine’s efforts to crush pro-Moscow separatists.
Ukrainian officials say that the rebels are fighting a desperate rearguard action to hold on to Luhansk — which is their supply route into Russia — and that the flow of weapons and fighters from Russia has accelerated.
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia were preparing to meet for talks on the conflict in Berlin yesterday, though it seemed likely that diplomacy could be overshadowed by fast-moving developments on the battlefield.
Moscow denies helping the rebels and accuses Kiev — backed by the West — of triggering a humanitarian crisis through the indiscriminate use of force against Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject the Ukrainian government’s rule.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that government forces fought separatists in a neighborhood of Luhansk city on Saturday and took control of the Zhovtneviy neighborhood police station.
“They raised the state flag over it,” Lysenko told a news briefing.
Separatist officials in Luhansk could not be reached by telephone, and a separatist spokeswoman in Donetsk, the other rebel strong-hold in eastern Ukraine, said she did not know what had happened in Luhansk.
A photograph on Twitter appeared to show a Ukrainian flag in front of the police station, but it could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian authorities yesterday said that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian warplane. The pilot ejected and was recovered after a search, military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky told reporters.
On Saturday, Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said rebels were in the process of receiving about 150 armored vehicles, including 30 tanks, and 1,200 fighters trained in Russia. He said they planned to launch a major counteroffensive.
“They are joining at the most crucial moment,” he said in a video recorded on Friday.
The assertion that the fighters were trained in Russia is awkward for Moscow, which has repeatedly denied allegations from Kiev and its Western allies that it is providing material support to separatists.
Adding to the tensions, Russia and Ukraine have been at odds for days over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks purportedly carrying water, food and medicine.
It was dispatched by Moscow bound for eastern Ukraine, but has been parked for several days in Russia near the border.
Kiev has said the convoy could be a Trojan Horse for Russia to get weapons to the rebels, a notion that Moscow has dismissed as absurd. It said the aid is desperately needed by civilians left without water and power, and under constant bombardment from the Ukrainian advance.
After days of wrangling between Kiev and Moscow, there were signs of movement yesterday.
Sixteen trucks separated from the main convoy and drove into a Russian bus depot near a border crossing into Ukraine, a Reuters cameraman said from the scene.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva, Switzerland, that Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officials had agreed that the cargo could be inspected.
The UN said this month that an estimated 2,086 people had been killed in the conflict. That figure nearly doubled since the end of last month, when Ukrainian forces stepped up their offensive and fighting started in urban areas.
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