Ukraine Army Probes Slavyansk Defenses
Ukraine's army is probing rebel defenses around the besieged eastern town of Slavyansk, where a long stalemate is under way in what has become a crucible for the worsening crisis.
Three outlying checkpoints set up by insurgents around the town of 160,000 inhabitants were "liquidated" overnight with no casualties on either side, the interior ministry in Kiev said in a statement.
Military armored vehicles are also sometimes seen driving up close to Slavyansk before turning around, apparently on reconnaissance forays.
The insurgents in the past few days say some armed clashes have sporadically flared and "spies" have been captured -- but the assertions turned out to be either greatly exaggerated or unverifiable.
What does seem clear though, from the army checkpoints set up in a perimeter several kilometers (miles) from Slavyansk, is that the town is effectively surrounded.
While tensions are evident, with both sides carefully checking vehicle traffic, there is also a sense of the situation settling into an impasse.
"Do you have guns? Drugs? Maybe Mexican immigrants?" jokes one Ukrainian paratrooper to a car's occupants at a roadblock in the nearby village of Malinivka, to spice up what has obviously become a dull routine.
The checkpoint is created from four armored personnel carriers staggered along the road, to force vehicles to slow. The APCs fly Ukrainian flags -- an assertion of national authority in an area dotted with pro-Russia bastions.
"I've been here for a week. It's very calm because they (the rebels) are afraid to come close," says one young soldier, visibly tired of the monotony. He falls immediately quiet as an officer appears.
Not far away, a rebel-manned outpost of tents in the village of Paraskoviivka squats outside what insurgents say is a fenced-off Ukrainian arms depot.
Nastia, wearing camouflage and a scarf on her head, says she came over a month ago to be a battlefield nurse for her pro-Russian militant comrades.
But so far the only action she has witnessed was "several days ago" when a crack team of Ukrainian commandos helicoptered down to snatch one of the insurgents. She still doesn't know why.
In Slavyansk itself, the rebels have hefty barricades of sandbags set up outside the police station and the SBU security services building. The defenses have slits built into them to allow those inside to shoot out.
A nighttime curfew means no-one -- apart from the rebels -- is allowed on the streets between midnight and dawn.
The impasse, the long stand-off with no fighting, means the situation is "a virtual war," in the words of one of the pro-Moscow rebel commanders.
For most of Slavyansk's residents, it's a showdown that generates little more than apathy.
An exhortation by the rebels to rally around and show the "nationalist torturers" in Kiev they will never take back control is being ignored.
Instead, locals are more worried about the irritations the situation is piling on their daily lives.
"Basic food items, onions for example, that sold for 20 cents a kilo" before Ukraine's troubles began five months ago "are now $1.40," complains Svetlana, a fruit and vegetable seller.
"And I won't even mention pineapples, or bananas, which have gone from $1 to $5.50 per kilo -- something never seen before."
