Ukraine Warns Eastern Push May Last another Month
Ukraine warned on Thursday that its assault on pro-Russian insurgents may last another month and rejected calls for a ceasefire as it moved tanks within striking distance of the rebels' two remaining strongholds.
An AFP team about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the eastern hub of Donetsk -- to which most of the militias have retreated -- saw heavy armored vehicles fan out across the rolling corn and sunflower fields of the economically-vital rustbelt.
A vast column of tanks and military vehicles arrived in the area on Wednesday in an apparent push to surround Donetsk and the neighboring city of Lugansk -- both capitals of their own "People's Republics".
An earth-mover’s engine stuttered in the stifling heat as it dug trenches to help troops dodge artillery strikes from thousands of insurgents who are refusing to give up their bloody three-month drive to join Russian rule.
"We arrived here last night," said a balaclava-wearing soldier named Yuriy as his comrades stretched electric cables to a nearby farm to power up their equipment. He remained tight-lipped about his unit's immediate plans but vowed to fulfill "all orders".
The Ukrainian military said three servicemen had been killed and 27 wounded in the previous 24 hours. Two died when their armored vehicle hit one of the numerous land mines separatists have planted to slow Kiev's relentless advance.
"We can now make a forecast about how long it will take to pull troops back from Donetsk and Lugansk," interior ministry advisor Stanislav Rechinsky told Ukrainian state television.
"Presumably, this can be done within a month," he said.
Rechinsky added "there will be no air or artillery strikes" against either city because of the toll in a low-scale war which has claimed 478 civilians and more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers as well as an undisclosed number of gunmen.
The Ukrainian health ministry said Thursday that another 1,392 civilians had been wounded during Kiev's "anti-terrorist operation" in the east.
Fears of an all-out assault on the two densely populated centers have redoubled European efforts to force Kiev to negotiate truce terms that could help calm the most explosive East-West standoff in Europe since the Cold War.
The tide in the conflict turned Saturday when insurgents abandoned their Slavyansk bastion -- a city of 120,000 now emptied of half its population and in dire need of fresh water and medical supplies.
Kiev paints the insurgency as a proxy war being waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin in reprisal for the February ouster of an allied administration and the collapse of his dream to push Ukraine into a powerful new post-Soviet bloc.
But Kiev's recent string of military successes have alarmed European leaders hoping to secure a truce to take pressure off the EU adopting further economic sanctions which might damage energy and financial ties with Russia.
The EU resisted Washington's calls to be firmer with Putin and on Wednesday only promised to add 11 new names to its list of 61 Russians and Ukrainian separatists targeted by travel and financial bans.
Moscow has shrugged off such measures and Russia's wobbly stock market has rebounded in the belief that EU leaders were too concerned about their own economies to unleash meaningful punitive steps.
Kiev has largely ignored attempts by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to resurrect a truce that Petro Poroshenko -- elected president in May -- abandoned on July 1.
Hollande and Merkel once again called on Putin in a three-way phone call on Thursday "to exert all the pressure necessary" to get separatists to open a direct dialogue with Poroshenko's team.
Poroshenko this week said talks with the rebel commanders -- demanded on a nearly-daily basis by Putin and his top ministers -- were impossible because they had gone into hiding in Moscow.
But the new Kiev leaders have also been keen to avoid drawing the ire of EU leaders whose political and financial backing is vital to their survival.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on Thursday suggested contacting the militia leaders by video-conference.
"We live in a modern world. Why not start our negotiations by video-conference using Skype?" Klimkin asked.
Source: Agence France Presse
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