New shelling dents Ukraine ceasefire

Deadly shelling has rattled hopes for a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine, with Kiev and Russian-backed rebels blaming each other for attacks around the major cities of Donetsk and Mariupol.

Ukraine’s military said one person had been killed and three injured by rebel shelling east of the Azov Sea port of Mariupol on Saturday night, and that militants had fired artillery at Donetsk airport and several nearby towns yesterday.

“This is our ceasefire,” said Nikolai, an elderly resident of Oktyabrsky district next to Donetsk international airport on Saturday, as machine-gun fire crackled and an occasional mortar round exploded near the ruined terminal building.

“We have been sleeping in our basements for months because of bombing. It is quieter now, but it’s hardly peace,” he said.

Telephone call

Nikolai spoke as Ukraine’s president,

Petro Poroshenko

, said he and Russian counterpart

Vladimir Putin

had agreed in a telephone call that “overall the ceasefire was being implemented” and that they needed to find ways to make it more durable.

The truce appeared to be in danger of collapse a few hours later, however, as explosions rocked the outskirts of Mariupol, a Kiev-controlled city of about 500,000 threatened in the last week by a rebel advance from the Russian border to the east.

Mr Poroshenko’s pro-western administration has vowed to defend Mariupol from what it claims are separatist fighters backed by Russian soldiers and armour.

If the militants were to seize the city, they would be well placed to take control of a strip of land linking Russia with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in March. It is now isolated from Russia and largely relies on Ukraine for its power and water supplies.

On their Twitter feed, the militants announced on Saturday night: “The armed forces of Novorossiya are taking Mariupol.”

‘Novorossiya’

“Novorossiya” (“New Russia”) is a tsarist-era term for swathes of modern-day Ukraine that were part of the Russian empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. Mr Putin has taken to using the name this year, and pledged to defend Russian-speakers in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Later on Saturday night, the rebels claimed to have been fired upon from Ukrainian government positions around Mariupol.

Hopes for a peaceful resolution of Ukraine’s conflict, and the diplomatic and economic confrontation it has caused between Russia and western powers, were boosted by the signing of a 12-point protocol last Friday in the Belarusian capital.

In Minsk, representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian leaders, the militants and the 57-state Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) agreed on an immediate ceasefire, prisoner exchange, decentralisation of power to mostly Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions and early local elections there.

The document does not spell out what powers Donetsk and Luhansk could enjoy under decentralisation, and it calls vaguely for “inclusive national dialogue”.

The plan seems to stop well short of Russia’s calls for a federal Ukraine, which Kiev fears could be destabilised constantly by Moscow in eastern areas where it has great influence.

The insurgents have started releasing prisoners, and yesterday set free 15 government soldiers in Donetsk. They are believed to still hold more than 700 others.

The United Nations says about 2,800 people have been killed in the conflict and about a million displaced in eastern Ukraine, with many crossing to Russia.

The European Union announced new economic sanctions against Russia late on Friday but said they could be suspended if Moscow withdrew its troops and observed the conditions of the ceasefire.

Yuri Lutsenko, an adviser to Mr Poroshenko, said yesterday that the United States, France, Poland, Italy and Norway would provide arms and military advisers to Ukraine; all the countries except France swiftly denied planning to supply weapons to Kiev, however.