Ukraine bloodshed fuels fear ahead of presidential election

Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of escalating the violence in eastern Ukraine, as 13 of the country’s soldiers were killed amid troubled preparations for Sunday’s presidential election.

President Oleksandr Turchinov said the servicemen died under mortar and grenade fire as they fought off a separatist attack on the town of Volnovakha in the early hours of yesterday.

A commander of pro-Russian rebels in the town of Horlivka said his men “destroyed a checkpoint of the fascist Ukrainian army deployed on the land of the Donetsk Republic”.

“People living in western Ukraine: Think about where you are sending your brothers, fathers and sons, and why you need any of this,” he added.

In a sign of their lack of co-ordination, rebels in Donetsk claimed that members of Ukraine’s national guard had killed the soldiers after they decided to join the separatists.

Rebels occupy official buildings in about 15 towns in the industrial Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and declared independence from Ukraine after a May 11th referendum that Kiev and the West called an illegal sham. For several weeks they have skirmished with government forces conducting a halting and at times hapless "anti-terrorist" operation in the east, where many people are hostile to a new Kiev government that favours the EU over Russia.

Ukraine and its western allies accuse Russia of fomenting and organising much of the unrest, while Moscow denies involvement and wants Kiev to halt its crackdown before the presidential election. Russia has threatened not to recognise the vote’s legitimacy, or the authority of its winner, if the election is disrupted in eastern regions. The separatists vow to sabotage the election, and the European Union and United States insist they will impose tougher sanctions on Russia if it undermines the ballot.

Ukraine's prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk appealed to members of the UN security council to convene an emergency meeting to discuss alleged Russian attempts to "escalate the conflict, bloodshed, the seizure of border posts . . . and disrupt the presidential elections."

Moscow denies such claims and announced yesterday that 15 planes and 20 trains had withdrawn troops and equipment from regions close to Ukraine’s frontier.

Withdrawal Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the military alliance had "seen limited Russian troop activity in the vicinity of the border with Ukraine that may suggest that some of these forces are preparing to withdraw."

“It is too early to say what this means, but I hope this is the start of a full and genuine withdrawal . . . At present, most of the previously deployed Russian force remains near the Ukrainian border and we see continued Russian exercises in the same area.”

Philip Breedlove, the US air force general who is Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe, sounded a strong note of caution, following previous claims from Russia to have ended manoeuvres and pulled troops away from Ukraine. “We have seen some movement . . . but what we do know is the force that remains on the border is very large and very capable and it remains in a very coercive posture,” he said.

Mr Yatsenyuk called Russian claims of a withdrawal a “bluff”, because “even if the troops leave, then with direct assistance from the Russian authorities armed terrorists trained in Russia are breaking through the Ukrainian border”.

Moscow calls Ukraine’s crackdown on the rebels a “punitive operation” against peaceful anti-government protesters. It is the same term used in Russia for deadly raids on Soviet civilians conducted by Nazi invaders in the 1940s, and Moscow says the Kiev government now includes and is backed by Russian-hating fascists.

“Kiev has not only not ceased but has increased the punitive operation against its own people and is firing at cities in the east,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich. Surveys suggest a majority of easterners want to remain part of Ukraine, rather than claim independence or join Russia, but most are also unhappy with new national authorities that do not include representatives of their regions.

No guarantee In Donetsk and Luhansk, separatist leaders have asked to join Russia, and Luhansk’s self-declared “people’s governor” asked Moscow to send in “peacekeeping forces” yesterday. The rebels say they will not guarantee the safety of voters on Sunday, and have already raided many local elections commissions, stealing ballot papers, stamps and voter lists.

Kiev and western capitals say the ballot is a key step towards stabilising Ukraine, boosting the legitimacy of its post-revolutionary authorities. Confectionary billionaire Petro Poroshenko is expected to win, ahead of former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, with polls showing that he could take more than 50 per cent of votes in the first round and so obviate a run-off. "War has been declared on Ukraine," Mr Yatsenyuk said.

“We have accepted this challenge, and any attempts to disrupt the presidential elections and seize Ukrainian territory have been, and will be, unsuccessful.”