Ukraine rebels claim 5,000 troops ‘trapped’ in Debaltseve

Pro-Russian rebels fought their way into an encircled government stronghold in Ukraine on Tuesday, all but dashing hopes that a new peace deal would end months of conflict.

The agreement reached at all-night talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk last week appears to be unravelling rapidly, with both sides battling street-to-street and refusing to begin pulling back heavy guns as required.

The failed ceasefire has left thousands of Ukrainian troops surrounded, their fate uncertain. The rebels said they had captured hundreds of them and would not let the rest escape unless they surrender. Ukraine said some of its troops had been taken prisoner but denied the number captured was that high.

The Moscow-backed rebels say the ceasefire does not apply at all to the main battle front at the town of Debaltseve, where a railway hub has seen an all-out assault.

The fighting meant both sides spurned a deadline on Tuesday to being withdrawing heavy guns from the frontline. Kiev says it cannot pull guns back as long as the rebels show no sign of halting their advance.

Reuters journalists near the snowbound frontline said artillery rounds rocked Debaltseve every five seconds and black smoke rose skywards as Grad rockets pounded the town.

“Eighty percent of Debaltseve is already ours,“ said Eduard Basurin, a rebel leader. “A cleanup of the town is under way.“

He later said negotiations were under way for 5,000 Ukrainian troops trapped in the town to surrender. “Hundreds“ had been captured and would eventually be released to their families.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko called the rebel assault on the town a cynical attack on the Minsk agreement.

Kiev‘s military denied the town, which had a peacetime population of 25,000 and is now a bombed-out wasteland, had fallen, but acknowledged losing control of some of it. Some Ukrainian soldiers had been captured, it said, but not hundreds.

Nato and Kiev say the rebel military operation to take Debaltseve is being carried out with the assistance of tanks, artillery and soldiers from Russia‘s army.

Moscow denies that it has sent its forces to participate in battle for territory that president Vladimir Putin has referred to as “New Russia“.

Mr Putin on Tuesday suggested that the United States was already delivering weapons to Ukraine.

Asked how he assessed the possible consequences if the United States decides to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, Mr Putin said that “according to our information, these weapons are already being delivered”.

Speaking in Budapest where he met Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, Mr Putin said the new weapons for Ukraine could increase the number of victims but “the result will be the same as it is today. This is unavoidable”.

Washington said it was “gravely concerned“ by the fighting at Debaltseve and was monitoring reports of a new column of Russian military equipment heading to the area.

The United States has been considering sending weapons to aid Kiev, although the State Department said on Tuesday getting into a proxy war with Russia was not in the interests of Ukraine or the world.

EU foreign policy chief Francesca Mogherini said Tuesday‘s battles were “not encouraging“ but she had not abandoned hope for the ceasefire.

“As long as there is a signed deal to which the parties still refer as something that needs to be implemented, I will not say that there is a failure,” she said.

Hopes that the deal reached last Thursday would end a conflict that has killed more than 5,000 people were always low after a rebel advance in January ended an earlier truce.

But Western countries appear to have been taken by surprise that the rebels refused even to pay lip service to the ceasefire at Debaltseve, adding to concerns the separatists and Mr Putin want to cement rebel gains before allowing any peace to take hold.

Russia has already annexed Ukraine‘s Crimea peninsula, and Western countries believe Mr Putin‘s goal is to establish a “frozen conflict“ in eastern Ukraine, gaining permanent leverage over a country of 45 million people seeking integration with Europe.

Reuters