KIEV, Ukraine -- As Vladimir Putin achieves his minimal goal in Minsk, Russia is isolated from Europe and the US but spreading its reach to new alliances.
After the ceasefire negotiated in Minsk, a peace settlement in eastern Ukraine remains distant.
Most of the points in the agreement, including Ukraine’s constitutional reform and the resumption of Kiev’s control over the entire Ukrainian-Russian border, will probably never be implemented.
The most one can hope for is that the conflict is frozen and people stop dying.
Even that, however, cannot be taken for granted, as continued fighting ahead of the ceasefire’s formal entry into force suggests.
If the truce sticks, it will be the first negotiated arrangement in a newly divided Europe, leaving Russia almost alone on the east, with much of the rest of Europe supporting Ukraine.
This split can grow much worse if the conflict in Donbass continues.
But even if it stops, reconciliation is not on the cards.
This means that in the foreseeable future there will be no common security system on the continent of Europe, no commonly agreed-upon norms and no rules of behaviour.
The world disorder has entered the recently most stable and best-regulated part of the globe: Europe.
The idea that a combination of western sanctions and the low oil price can bring a change in Kremlin policies, or a change in the Kremlin itself, has so far not been borne out by the facts.
Putin remains defiant, the elites do not turn against him, and his popularity among the bulk of the Russian people, despite the hardships they have begun to feel, is at record levels.
These people are not ignorant of the dangers a continued conflict over Ukraine can pose to them, but lay the blame for these on Kiev, Washington and the European leaders.
Putin, whether as war leader or a peacemaker, is their champion.
At Minsk, he has achieved his minimal goal.
Kiev has conceded the failure of its efforts to wipe out the Donbass rebels backed by Moscow.
If the ceasefire becomes permanent, the “people’s republics” will be physically safe and can start turning themselves into functioning entities on the models of Transnistria.
Russia will need to supply them with more than weapons and humanitarian assistance, straining its resources even more, but there’s hardly an alternative.
For Putin, and most Russians, these are “our people”.
Yet, in Minsk, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s official position that Donbass should remain part of Ukraine.
This is not a concession.
Within a formally unified Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk are a protected centre of resistance to the political leadership in Kiev.
The situation in the rest of the country permitting, they can expand their influence beyond Donbass and link up with those who, a year after the triumph of the Maidan, have become disillusioned with their government, which is woefully unable to tame corruption and improve the lives of ordinary Ukrainians.
Indeed, if the truce in the east of the country holds, the future of Ukraine will depend on how it manages reform and popular discontent.
Russia has not so much “lost Ukraine”, as, at least for the time being, its European option.
The recent joint trip of chancellor Angela Merkel and president François Hollande to Moscow, which paved the road to Minsk, is a rare top-level visit to Russia by western leaders these days.
The German-Russian relationship, a mainstay of Europe’s post-cold war stability, has dangerously frayed.
With politics adversarial and history divisive, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War has led to controversies, with a number of politicians in Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine seeking to minimise the Soviet Union’s contribution to the defeat of Nazism or accusing the Soviets of crimes to exonerate those who sided with Hitler against Stalin.
Thus, as a result of the Ukraine conflict, the gulf between Russia and the European Union is wide, deep and growing.
The Russian government does not expect the lifting of EU sanctions for a long time and, even then, it is hard to expect business as before.
Putin’s idea of a “greater Europe from Dublin to Vladivostok”, which he was seeking to sell to the European, particularly German business community, only five years ago, is being replaced by the reality of Russia’s increasing closeness to China and the rise of what can be called a “greater Asia from Shanghai to St Petersburg”.
When Putin reviews the Victory Day military parade on 9 May, his most honoured guest will be the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, with Barack Obama and most other western leaders boycotting the celebration.
De facto expelled from the G8, in confrontation with the United States and with its European option closed, Russia is not isolated elsewhere.
Apart from China, it is trying to expand ties to India, which is also joining this year the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.
When Putin hosts the twin summits of Brics and SCO in Ufa in July, he will be in the chair of the two most prominent clubs of the non-western world.
Thanks to China’s economic and financial might, and Russia’s international experience, these clubs have a potential for evolving into serious organisations capable of providing a measure of financial and political leadership.
It is not all symbolism.
In a dramatic move, Russia has dropped Gazprom’s pet project, the South Stream, in favour of a gas pipeline running through Turkey to meet the EU on the Greek border.
Turkey, a NATO member and US ally, is strengthening economic links to Russia.
So is, albeit more quietly, South Korea, another key US ally.
Prime minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has not given up on his vision of a normalised and economically vibrant relationship with Russia.
In the Middle East, Russia has intensified its outreach to Iran and Egypt, while keeping active relations with Israel and courting Saudi Arabia, not to count its involvement in Syria, of course.
From Latin America to south-east Asia to Pakistan, Russia has been looking for customers for its newly revived defence industry.
Ukraine is not the centre of the geopolitical universe, neither is Russia central to the future of the globe.
Yet, Ukraine and the global crisis over it point to the start of a new period in world politics.
Great powers – Russia overtly, China covertly – are challenging the US-dominated order.
Nationalism, on the rise in places from Turkey to India to Japan, leads to a further erosion of that order.
Attempts to degrade and destroy Islamic State have yielded only partial, reversible results.
Having lost Russia as a partner and gained Ukraine as a new responsibility, Europe is uncertain what to do.
Germany has provided a modicum of diplomatic leadership to the EU as a whole, but the larger issue of strategic goals and how to achieve them has not been properly addressed.
Europe, an island of stability and peace for the last quarter-century, is rejoining the world.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Ukraine Cease-Fire Goes Into Effect, But Rebel Leader In Key Town Repudiates Accord
ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine -- A fragile, European-brokered cease-fire deal for Ukraine appeared at risk of unraveling, at least in part, when a rebel leader announced Saturday night that he would not be bound by the accord on a central battlefield of the war.
Although the Ukrainian president and the pro-Russian rebel leader both announced that the cease-fire had gone into effect, the separatist leader said it did not apply to Debaltseve, where thousands of Ukrainian troops have been under siege and might be surrounded.
The rebel leader, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, said the town, a critical railway hub, had not been mentioned specifically in the cease-fire agreement.
That deal, which went into effect at midnight, had been brokered by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the French president, François Hollande, in Minsk, Belarus.
Neither leader immediately commented on Zakharchenko’s announcement about Debaltseve, which had been the scene of intense fighting in recent days as the rebels battled to take the town before any cease-fire.
Just after the midnight deadline, Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, went on national television saying he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to halt their fire in the contested eastern portion of the country.
In his earlier statement, Zakharchenko, the head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, also said he had ordered his forces to halt combat all along the front line in eastern Ukraine, as required in the Minsk agreement, but not near Debaltseve.
He also indicated that rebel forces would not allow the approximately 8,000 Ukrainian troops who are there to leave.
We will block all attempts to break out,” he said.
“I have given the order.”
The statement left a looming question about the future of the accord brokered Thursday with great effort by the European leaders, including 16 hours of overnight negotiations between Ms. Merkel, Mr. Hollande, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Poroshenko.
The cease-fire is the second such attempt to end a war that has claimed more than 5,400 lives since it began in April.
Although Mr. Poroshenko said he had ordered the cease-fire, he added that Ukraine would not “turn the other cheek” if the other side violated the agreement, and he spoke bitterly of the two-and-a-half-day gap between the signing of the accord and the implementation of the cease-fire.
“We were ready for an immediate cease-fire in Minsk,” he said.
“But our counterparties asked for 60 hours. We paid a very heavy price for these 60 hours because dozens of Ukrainian citizens, including women and children, were killed.”
Ukrainian forces also continued fighting until the cease-fire went into effect.
Mr. Poroshenko urged the other leaders who had been involved in the talks to now ensure that the rest of the agreement was upheld.
Within hours, reports emerged of possible cease-fire violations, including mortar fire near Debaltseve.
But residents reached by phone in two cities with fighting on their outskirts, Donetsk and Mariupol, said all was calm.
From the cease-fire’s signing on Thursday until Saturday, the Ukrainian military reported 18 soldiers were killed and 63 wounded.
At least four children were among the civilians who died in the recent fighting.
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine issued a statement on Saturday evening carried by the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper saying Zakharchenko’s comments signaled that, “In this way, the Donetsk People’s Republic announces it does not recognize the Minsk accord and will continue military action.”
Mr. Poroshenko said Saturday he would ask the Ukrainian Parliament to declare a national state of martial law if the cease-fire broke down.
Russian-backed militants and Putin have insisted that Debaltseve is surrounded; the Ukrainian government has not conceded that point.
The only Ukrainian resupply road into the town is peppered with mines and in the range of artillery by both sides, and it is unclear who is in control.
Even before Zakharchenko announced the accord did not apply to Debaltseve, anger had been swelling among Ukrainian soldiers at a negotiated lag between the signing of the agreement and its implementation.
Fighting raged through the day on Saturday.
Both sides had tried to land final blows before midnight.
Shells killed two people in the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
Soldiers interviewed at their sandbagged positions along the contested road, as well as ambulance crews and doctors, expressed rising anger over the agreement that led not to a hoped-for calm, but an escalation in fighting.
The poorly guarded, 31-mile supply road into Debaltseve on Saturday was shrouded in an eerie mist and rimmed by bare trees, their limbs prickly with glistening hoarfrost.
Through the day, ambulances rushed to a hospital carrying from the fight the wounded whose luck ran out hours before the accord was intended to take effect.
“The cease-fire was a political decision by my government,” Oksana D. Yarosh, a Ukrainian military surgeon, said in an interview outside the Artemivsk Central Regional hospital, where the most gravely injured are evaluated.
She could not judge the decision to leave open the window for a final frenzy of fighting, she said, because it was unclear what other options existed.
“I am a military doctor,” she said.
“I serve, and my service is trying to save lives and health. Personally, it has been very painful for me to see the boys with shrapnel wounds.”
One of her patients, a 32-year-old soldier, came in Thursday night with severe shrapnel wounds to his face, and his right elbow had been so severely wounded that his arm would probably have to be amputated below the joint, though she refrained from doing so immediately.
“His life will never be the same,” Dr. Yarosh said.
“I think, ‘How horrible is war.’
And I think, ‘How scary that we lose people in this way.’ It’s been difficult.”
The United States on Friday said that Russian artillery was aiding the separatists in the battle to encircle the town, site of a strategic railroad switching yard.
On Saturday, the American ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, posted satellite images on his Twitter account to bolster the case that Russia had joined the separatists.
One image seemed to show four gun lines of towed artillery and one of self-propelled artillery northeast of Debaltseve, in a landscape in snowy towns of gray.
Another showed what Mr. Pyatt said were air-defense systems, and the third showed the black, streaky exhaust plumes of what was labeled a “Russian multiple rocket launcher deployment” near Shakhtar, Ukraine.
A medic reached on Saturday by cellphone in Debaltseve, Albert Sardaryen, a 22-year-old who left his university to volunteer with an ambulance crew, said the city had been attacked by Grad rockets through the night Friday, but that the firing let up around 11 a.m. on Saturday.
Soldiers were hunkered down in basements or bunkers, he said.
The scale of the casualties was unclear, he said, because many of the wounded could not be taken from their front-line positions to his field hospital.
The last ambulance left Debaltseve on Thursday evening, before the escalation that followed the cease-fire signing.
“The situation is quite difficult,” Mr. Sardaryen said.
“We don’t believe in the cease-fire. We are a little bit worried of being trapped. If there is no way out, all we can do is stay and fight here.
Although the Ukrainian president and the pro-Russian rebel leader both announced that the cease-fire had gone into effect, the separatist leader said it did not apply to Debaltseve, where thousands of Ukrainian troops have been under siege and might be surrounded.
The rebel leader, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, said the town, a critical railway hub, had not been mentioned specifically in the cease-fire agreement.
That deal, which went into effect at midnight, had been brokered by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the French president, François Hollande, in Minsk, Belarus.
Neither leader immediately commented on Zakharchenko’s announcement about Debaltseve, which had been the scene of intense fighting in recent days as the rebels battled to take the town before any cease-fire.
Just after the midnight deadline, Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, went on national television saying he had ordered Ukraine’s armed forces to halt their fire in the contested eastern portion of the country.
In his earlier statement, Zakharchenko, the head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, also said he had ordered his forces to halt combat all along the front line in eastern Ukraine, as required in the Minsk agreement, but not near Debaltseve.
He also indicated that rebel forces would not allow the approximately 8,000 Ukrainian troops who are there to leave.
We will block all attempts to break out,” he said.
“I have given the order.”
The statement left a looming question about the future of the accord brokered Thursday with great effort by the European leaders, including 16 hours of overnight negotiations between Ms. Merkel, Mr. Hollande, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Poroshenko.
The cease-fire is the second such attempt to end a war that has claimed more than 5,400 lives since it began in April.
Although Mr. Poroshenko said he had ordered the cease-fire, he added that Ukraine would not “turn the other cheek” if the other side violated the agreement, and he spoke bitterly of the two-and-a-half-day gap between the signing of the accord and the implementation of the cease-fire.
“We were ready for an immediate cease-fire in Minsk,” he said.
“But our counterparties asked for 60 hours. We paid a very heavy price for these 60 hours because dozens of Ukrainian citizens, including women and children, were killed.”
Ukrainian forces also continued fighting until the cease-fire went into effect.
Mr. Poroshenko urged the other leaders who had been involved in the talks to now ensure that the rest of the agreement was upheld.
Within hours, reports emerged of possible cease-fire violations, including mortar fire near Debaltseve.
But residents reached by phone in two cities with fighting on their outskirts, Donetsk and Mariupol, said all was calm.
From the cease-fire’s signing on Thursday until Saturday, the Ukrainian military reported 18 soldiers were killed and 63 wounded.
At least four children were among the civilians who died in the recent fighting.
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine issued a statement on Saturday evening carried by the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper saying Zakharchenko’s comments signaled that, “In this way, the Donetsk People’s Republic announces it does not recognize the Minsk accord and will continue military action.”
Mr. Poroshenko said Saturday he would ask the Ukrainian Parliament to declare a national state of martial law if the cease-fire broke down.
Russian-backed militants and Putin have insisted that Debaltseve is surrounded; the Ukrainian government has not conceded that point.
The only Ukrainian resupply road into the town is peppered with mines and in the range of artillery by both sides, and it is unclear who is in control.
Even before Zakharchenko announced the accord did not apply to Debaltseve, anger had been swelling among Ukrainian soldiers at a negotiated lag between the signing of the agreement and its implementation.
Fighting raged through the day on Saturday.
Both sides had tried to land final blows before midnight.
Shells killed two people in the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
Soldiers interviewed at their sandbagged positions along the contested road, as well as ambulance crews and doctors, expressed rising anger over the agreement that led not to a hoped-for calm, but an escalation in fighting.
The poorly guarded, 31-mile supply road into Debaltseve on Saturday was shrouded in an eerie mist and rimmed by bare trees, their limbs prickly with glistening hoarfrost.
Through the day, ambulances rushed to a hospital carrying from the fight the wounded whose luck ran out hours before the accord was intended to take effect.
“The cease-fire was a political decision by my government,” Oksana D. Yarosh, a Ukrainian military surgeon, said in an interview outside the Artemivsk Central Regional hospital, where the most gravely injured are evaluated.
She could not judge the decision to leave open the window for a final frenzy of fighting, she said, because it was unclear what other options existed.
“I am a military doctor,” she said.
“I serve, and my service is trying to save lives and health. Personally, it has been very painful for me to see the boys with shrapnel wounds.”
One of her patients, a 32-year-old soldier, came in Thursday night with severe shrapnel wounds to his face, and his right elbow had been so severely wounded that his arm would probably have to be amputated below the joint, though she refrained from doing so immediately.
“His life will never be the same,” Dr. Yarosh said.
“I think, ‘How horrible is war.’
And I think, ‘How scary that we lose people in this way.’ It’s been difficult.”
The United States on Friday said that Russian artillery was aiding the separatists in the battle to encircle the town, site of a strategic railroad switching yard.
On Saturday, the American ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, posted satellite images on his Twitter account to bolster the case that Russia had joined the separatists.
One image seemed to show four gun lines of towed artillery and one of self-propelled artillery northeast of Debaltseve, in a landscape in snowy towns of gray.
Another showed what Mr. Pyatt said were air-defense systems, and the third showed the black, streaky exhaust plumes of what was labeled a “Russian multiple rocket launcher deployment” near Shakhtar, Ukraine.
A medic reached on Saturday by cellphone in Debaltseve, Albert Sardaryen, a 22-year-old who left his university to volunteer with an ambulance crew, said the city had been attacked by Grad rockets through the night Friday, but that the firing let up around 11 a.m. on Saturday.
Soldiers were hunkered down in basements or bunkers, he said.
The scale of the casualties was unclear, he said, because many of the wounded could not be taken from their front-line positions to his field hospital.
The last ambulance left Debaltseve on Thursday evening, before the escalation that followed the cease-fire signing.
“The situation is quite difficult,” Mr. Sardaryen said.
“We don’t believe in the cease-fire. We are a little bit worried of being trapped. If there is no way out, all we can do is stay and fight here.
Sunday, 8 February 2015
Biden To Putin: Get Out Of Ukraine
WASHINGTON, DC -- Vice President Joe Biden served up some blunt talk on Saturday, telling Russian President Vladimir Putin simply to "get out of Ukraine."
Biden's comments come at a time of increasing violence in Ukraine, with at least 224 killed and more than 540 injured in the final three weeks of January, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Biden said the conflict had moved beyond the need for a "reset" with the relationship, instead requiring a "re-assertion" of the "fundamental bedrock principles on which European freedom and stability rest."
Biden met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier Saturday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
"We must judge ... any future agreement with Russia by the actions Russia takes on the ground, not by the paper they sign," Biden said.
"Given Russia's recent history, we need to judge it by its deeds, not its words. Don't tell us, show us, President Putin. Too many times President Putin has promised peace and delivered tanks, troops, and weapons."
While he's echoing much of what White House press secretary Josh Earnest has been saying during recent daily press briefings, neither Biden nor President Barack Obama has weighed in directly this week since tensions escalated.
He would not discuss the possibility of U.S. ground troops in the region, but re-asserted the Ukrainian people's right to defend themselves.
"We will continue providing Ukraine with security assistance, not to encourage war, but to allow Ukraine to defend itself," he said.
"Let me be clear: We do not believe that there is a military solution in Ukraine. Let me be equally clear: We do not believe Russia has the right to do what they're doing."
Biden stressed that the United States was not trying to "collapse or weaken the Russian economy" with continued sanctions, but he had a warning for the Russian leader.
"President Putin has to make a simple, stark choice," he said.
"Get out of Ukraine, or face continued isolation and growing economic costs at home."
Merkel is scheduled to visit Washington on Monday.
The White House said she will meet with Obama to discuss Ukraine, ISIS and counterterrorism, as well as global economic issues.
After the Monday meeting, the two leaders will hold a joint press conference.
Biden's comments come at a time of increasing violence in Ukraine, with at least 224 killed and more than 540 injured in the final three weeks of January, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Biden said the conflict had moved beyond the need for a "reset" with the relationship, instead requiring a "re-assertion" of the "fundamental bedrock principles on which European freedom and stability rest."
Biden met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier Saturday to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
"We must judge ... any future agreement with Russia by the actions Russia takes on the ground, not by the paper they sign," Biden said.
"Given Russia's recent history, we need to judge it by its deeds, not its words. Don't tell us, show us, President Putin. Too many times President Putin has promised peace and delivered tanks, troops, and weapons."
While he's echoing much of what White House press secretary Josh Earnest has been saying during recent daily press briefings, neither Biden nor President Barack Obama has weighed in directly this week since tensions escalated.
He would not discuss the possibility of U.S. ground troops in the region, but re-asserted the Ukrainian people's right to defend themselves.
"We will continue providing Ukraine with security assistance, not to encourage war, but to allow Ukraine to defend itself," he said.
"Let me be clear: We do not believe that there is a military solution in Ukraine. Let me be equally clear: We do not believe Russia has the right to do what they're doing."
Biden stressed that the United States was not trying to "collapse or weaken the Russian economy" with continued sanctions, but he had a warning for the Russian leader.
"President Putin has to make a simple, stark choice," he said.
"Get out of Ukraine, or face continued isolation and growing economic costs at home."
Merkel is scheduled to visit Washington on Monday.
The White House said she will meet with Obama to discuss Ukraine, ISIS and counterterrorism, as well as global economic issues.
After the Monday meeting, the two leaders will hold a joint press conference.
Russian-Backed Rebels Massing To Attack Key Ukrainian Towns: Kiev
DONETSK, Ukraine -- Pro-Russian separatists have intensified shelling of government forces on all front lines and appear to be amassing forces for new offensives on the key railway town of Debaltseve and the coastal city of Mariupol, Ukraine's military said on Saturday.
Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 26 wounded in fighting in the past 24 hours, spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy told a briefing in Kiev.
The center of the main regional city of Donetsk echoed on Saturday with the sound of artillery blasts coming from the north and east.
"The situation inside the city is tense and we can hear powerful artillery fire … but we have no immediate information about casualties and damages," an official of the rebel-controlled city administration said by phone.
Separatist gains against Kiev government forces in eastern Ukraine, particularly a rebel advance on Debaltseve to the northeast of Donetsk, have given impetus to a Franco-German initiative to try to end the Ukrainian crisis.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who with French President Francois Hollande met Russia's Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Friday, said in Munich on Saturday that there was no guarantee that the peace initiative would work.
But she voiced opposition to the West supplying arms to the Ukrainian government to help them to defend themselves against separatists who Kiev says are supported by Russian arms and Russian troops - an opinion which has set her at odds with a strong body of opinion in the United States.
Moscow, continues to lie, and says there is no proof of armed involvement by Russian forces.
More than 5,350 civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and pro-separatist fighters have been killed since a separatist rebellion erupted in Ukraine's eastern territories in April.
A peace deal was struck last September in Minsk, Belarus, but the agreed ceasefire was almost immediately violated and attempts to revive it have failed.
Artillery and mortar fire on populated areas of the east including Donetsk itself have taken a toll on civilian lives, while more than 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.
The present focus on the battlefield is the town of Debaltseve, a vital rail and road junction which lies in a pocket between the two main separatist-controlled regions.
Ukrainian government forces express confidence they have enough firepower to hold the town even though the rebels have steadily encroached in surrounding towns and villages.
A Reuters correspondent who was in Debaltseve on Friday said Ukrainian forces kept up a steady barrage of mortar or howitzer fire from the town even as an operation to evacuate civilians was under way.
Another source of concern for the Ukrainians is Mariupol, a southeastern city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which lies between rebel-controlled areas and the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia last March.
Mariupol's vulnerability was exposed last month when 30 civilians were killed there in intense rocket attacks.
"The situation remains tense. The adversary is carrying out attacks across all the separation lines," military spokesman Polyovy said on Saturday.
"The Russian terrorist forces are gathering strength for further offensives on Mariupol and Debaltseve. An increase in the number of tanks and armored vehicles in Debaltseve ... has been noticed," he said.
In the village of Olenivka, about 15 km (9 miles) south from Donetsk, a rebel artillery unit was busy on Saturday digging trenches and doing weapons drill inside an abandoned farm.
Inside the compound, a sole self-propelled howitzer was aimed at Ukrainian positions about four km to the west, its barrel shut with a protective cover.
An anti tank gun was positioned nearby.
The outer perimeter of the compound was blocked with anti-personnel mines masked with foliage.
"We know the way in and out and whoever else steps in here will go with a big blast," said a rebel commander, who gave his nom de guerre, "the Priest".
Reporters saw at least seven houses that had been damaged by shells.
Valentyna Yefimova, 74, said a shell heavily damaged her home some days ago.
We were sitting inside when the shelling started … and then a shell landed on the corner of the house, but we were lucky as the blast threw the refrigerator onto us and it protected us from splinters," she said.
Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 26 wounded in fighting in the past 24 hours, spokesman Volodymyr Polyovy told a briefing in Kiev.
The center of the main regional city of Donetsk echoed on Saturday with the sound of artillery blasts coming from the north and east.
"The situation inside the city is tense and we can hear powerful artillery fire … but we have no immediate information about casualties and damages," an official of the rebel-controlled city administration said by phone.
Separatist gains against Kiev government forces in eastern Ukraine, particularly a rebel advance on Debaltseve to the northeast of Donetsk, have given impetus to a Franco-German initiative to try to end the Ukrainian crisis.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who with French President Francois Hollande met Russia's Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Friday, said in Munich on Saturday that there was no guarantee that the peace initiative would work.
But she voiced opposition to the West supplying arms to the Ukrainian government to help them to defend themselves against separatists who Kiev says are supported by Russian arms and Russian troops - an opinion which has set her at odds with a strong body of opinion in the United States.
Moscow, continues to lie, and says there is no proof of armed involvement by Russian forces.
More than 5,350 civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and pro-separatist fighters have been killed since a separatist rebellion erupted in Ukraine's eastern territories in April.
A peace deal was struck last September in Minsk, Belarus, but the agreed ceasefire was almost immediately violated and attempts to revive it have failed.
Artillery and mortar fire on populated areas of the east including Donetsk itself have taken a toll on civilian lives, while more than 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.
The present focus on the battlefield is the town of Debaltseve, a vital rail and road junction which lies in a pocket between the two main separatist-controlled regions.
Ukrainian government forces express confidence they have enough firepower to hold the town even though the rebels have steadily encroached in surrounding towns and villages.
A Reuters correspondent who was in Debaltseve on Friday said Ukrainian forces kept up a steady barrage of mortar or howitzer fire from the town even as an operation to evacuate civilians was under way.
Another source of concern for the Ukrainians is Mariupol, a southeastern city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, which lies between rebel-controlled areas and the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia last March.
Mariupol's vulnerability was exposed last month when 30 civilians were killed there in intense rocket attacks.
"The situation remains tense. The adversary is carrying out attacks across all the separation lines," military spokesman Polyovy said on Saturday.
"The Russian terrorist forces are gathering strength for further offensives on Mariupol and Debaltseve. An increase in the number of tanks and armored vehicles in Debaltseve ... has been noticed," he said.
In the village of Olenivka, about 15 km (9 miles) south from Donetsk, a rebel artillery unit was busy on Saturday digging trenches and doing weapons drill inside an abandoned farm.
Inside the compound, a sole self-propelled howitzer was aimed at Ukrainian positions about four km to the west, its barrel shut with a protective cover.
An anti tank gun was positioned nearby.
The outer perimeter of the compound was blocked with anti-personnel mines masked with foliage.
"We know the way in and out and whoever else steps in here will go with a big blast," said a rebel commander, who gave his nom de guerre, "the Priest".
Reporters saw at least seven houses that had been damaged by shells.
Valentyna Yefimova, 74, said a shell heavily damaged her home some days ago.
We were sitting inside when the shelling started … and then a shell landed on the corner of the house, but we were lucky as the blast threw the refrigerator onto us and it protected us from splinters," she said.
Ukrainian Authorities, Rebels Evacuate Civilians From Front Line Town
DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine -- Convoys of buses carrying many local residents to safety left the besieged town of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine on Friday as government forces kept up artillery fire to defend their positions against pro-Russian separatists.
The two convoys of empty buses, one of around 20 vehicles coming from territory controlled by the Ukrainian army and another of more than 30 from the rebel-held city of Donetsk converged in Debaltseve town center's narrow streets and a small square near the district administration building.
Hundreds of civilians were waiting, on a frosty day, to board and leave the town either to Ukrainian or rebel-held territory.
Between 500 and 700 people said they would be leaving today," said Oleksandr Klymenko, a Ukrainian government official.
"For those leaving to (government-controlled) Slaviansk we have rail cars ready with blankets and heating and they will be (later) distributed elsewhere to Ukraine."
An estimated 3,000 people still remained in the town which had a population of around 25,000 before the conflict, he said.
Both convoys, which were accompanied by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors, left Debaltseve at around the same time, though the one returning to rebel-controlled Donetsk, about 60 km (37 miles) away, took only 60 people.
Most buses returned empty.
But even as the evacuation progressed, Ukrainian defenders kept up regular howitzer and mortar fire at separatists beyond the town's perimeter from a position about 200 meters (yards) from the town center.
STRATEGIC HUB
In Donetsk, Eduard Basurin, a rebel commander, accused Ukrainian authorities of failing to inform the people about the possibility of the evacuation to the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR).
"Also when we entered Debaltseve their (Ukrainian) artillery was firing from inside the town," he told reporters.
Government forces have held on to Debaltseve, a strategic rail hub linking the two separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine, despite rebel artillery attacks that badly damaged the town.
"The last two weeks were hell. We will go to Ukrainian territory, we have relatives there," said Artem Nikishin, a 31-year-old, as he boarded a bus to the government-controlled town of Slaviansk with his wife and two sons.
"This is our property now," he said, pointing to several bags and a wrap made of a blanket.
Regional police chief in Debaltseve Vyacheslav Abroskin said on Facebook that one person had been killed in rebel artillery shelling of the town on Friday morning.
In the center of Debaltseve, dozens of Ukrainian troops in full battle gear, mingled with civilians waiting either to receive humanitarian aid or board the buses.
A soldier who only used his nickname of "the student" said they were determined to hold Debaltseve.
"We will win this battle, we do not need American weapons... what we need is our fighting spirit, as long as we have it we will defeat these Russian servants in Donetsk and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin himself."
Another soldier who said his name was Ruslan, a man in his late 50s, said he had volunteered to fight for the future of the country.
"There's no need for young people to die here. We old dogs can defeat these Russian cowards alone. We can give them a good bite," Ruslan said waving his fist at Russian liaison officers accompanying one of the convoys.
Most of those fleeing Debaltseve were headed for government-held territory, but Svetlana, 45, was getting on a bus to the rebel-held town of Yenakieve, 22 km (14 miles) away.
"After two weeks in a cellar, thinking and rethinking whether to leave the house or not, we've decided to leave. The kids don't have to experience this any more," said Svetlana, who declined to give her last name.
The two convoys of empty buses, one of around 20 vehicles coming from territory controlled by the Ukrainian army and another of more than 30 from the rebel-held city of Donetsk converged in Debaltseve town center's narrow streets and a small square near the district administration building.
Hundreds of civilians were waiting, on a frosty day, to board and leave the town either to Ukrainian or rebel-held territory.
Between 500 and 700 people said they would be leaving today," said Oleksandr Klymenko, a Ukrainian government official.
"For those leaving to (government-controlled) Slaviansk we have rail cars ready with blankets and heating and they will be (later) distributed elsewhere to Ukraine."
An estimated 3,000 people still remained in the town which had a population of around 25,000 before the conflict, he said.
Both convoys, which were accompanied by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors, left Debaltseve at around the same time, though the one returning to rebel-controlled Donetsk, about 60 km (37 miles) away, took only 60 people.
Most buses returned empty.
But even as the evacuation progressed, Ukrainian defenders kept up regular howitzer and mortar fire at separatists beyond the town's perimeter from a position about 200 meters (yards) from the town center.
STRATEGIC HUB
In Donetsk, Eduard Basurin, a rebel commander, accused Ukrainian authorities of failing to inform the people about the possibility of the evacuation to the rebel Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR).
"Also when we entered Debaltseve their (Ukrainian) artillery was firing from inside the town," he told reporters.
Government forces have held on to Debaltseve, a strategic rail hub linking the two separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine, despite rebel artillery attacks that badly damaged the town.
"The last two weeks were hell. We will go to Ukrainian territory, we have relatives there," said Artem Nikishin, a 31-year-old, as he boarded a bus to the government-controlled town of Slaviansk with his wife and two sons.
"This is our property now," he said, pointing to several bags and a wrap made of a blanket.
Regional police chief in Debaltseve Vyacheslav Abroskin said on Facebook that one person had been killed in rebel artillery shelling of the town on Friday morning.
In the center of Debaltseve, dozens of Ukrainian troops in full battle gear, mingled with civilians waiting either to receive humanitarian aid or board the buses.
A soldier who only used his nickname of "the student" said they were determined to hold Debaltseve.
"We will win this battle, we do not need American weapons... what we need is our fighting spirit, as long as we have it we will defeat these Russian servants in Donetsk and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin himself."
Another soldier who said his name was Ruslan, a man in his late 50s, said he had volunteered to fight for the future of the country.
"There's no need for young people to die here. We old dogs can defeat these Russian cowards alone. We can give them a good bite," Ruslan said waving his fist at Russian liaison officers accompanying one of the convoys.
Most of those fleeing Debaltseve were headed for government-held territory, but Svetlana, 45, was getting on a bus to the rebel-held town of Yenakieve, 22 km (14 miles) away.
"After two weeks in a cellar, thinking and rethinking whether to leave the house or not, we've decided to leave. The kids don't have to experience this any more," said Svetlana, who declined to give her last name.
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