Dozens killed as Ukraine forces re-take Donetsk airport

Ukraine's government said it inflicted "significant" losses on pro-Russian rebels in the east and retook Donetsk airport a day after President-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed to wipe out the separatists.

Troops killed "dozens" of rebels without suffering any losses, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, while the mayor's office in Donetsk said 40 people died and 31 were wounded. Gunmen also broke through the border from Russia after a firefight with government forces overnight, and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for humanitarian and military help, according to separatist leader Denis Pushilin.

"The anti-terrorist operation is in an active phase now," First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema told reporters in Kiev today. "We'll continue this operation until there are no terrorists on Ukraine's territory."

The violence highlights mr Poroshenko's difficult task in uniting Ukraine after his May 25th presidential election victory. He must stabilise a shrinking economy and confront separatists who've captured large swaths of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. They've declared the areas independent and are fighting to join Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March.

Mr Poroshenko vowed yesterday to intensify operations to defeat the separatists, saying "they won't last two or three months; they'll last a few hours." That drew a warning from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that any escalation would be a "colossal mistake."

In a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, mr Putin said the government in Kiev must halt its military operation, the president's office said in a statement. Ukrainian paratroopers, helicopters and warplanes attacked separatists who seized the airport yesterday in Donetsk, a city of about 1 million people, and retook it, Mr Avakov said.

“The airport is fully controlled“ by government forces, he told journalists in Kiev. “We did not have any casualties among our troops, while the terrorists lost dozens.“

Streets in Donetsk were virtually empty today. Shops around the city were closed and stalls at the usually bustling Radio Rynok, a central market, were shuttered. Few drivers ventured out on Artema Street, the city‘s central avenue. Separatists abandoned a road block they held yesterday on the highway between Donetsk and Krasnoarmiysk to the northwest as fighting continued in the city for a second day.

Government forces blocked all major roads heading north of Donetsk to the rebel stronghold of Slovyansk as fighting continued there and in the port of Mariupol. Three people were killed and eight women wounded in Slovyansk and one person died in Mariupol yesterday, the local Ostrov newswire cited a regional administration official as telling reporters in Donetsk.

Reuters