Ukraine readies political and security response to rebel vote

Ukraine is poised to scrap a law giving autonomy to breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk, and to tighten security measures around the regions, after rebel elections that Russia supported and Kiev and the West denounced as a dangerous sham.

President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine's central government may also seek to strengthen economic restrictions on eastern areas under separatist control, while providing humanitarian aid to local people facing a cold and difficult winter.

The European Union and United States accused Moscow of fuelling a potential escalation in the conflict, while Nato said the Kremlin was continuing to aid the rebels and was sending troops towards Ukraine's border.

Mr Poroshenko laid out Kiev's response to Sunday's elections as the pro-Moscow militants held inauguration ceremonies yesterday for leaders Alexander Zakharchenko in Donetsk and Igor Plotnitsky in Luhansk.

“Today I will propose . . . to parliament a request to cancel the law on special self-government in Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Mr Poroshenko said.

The law was part of a September 5th peace plan that stipulated a range of measures to ease fighting that has killed more than 4,000 people and displaced about 1 million, and which envisaged broad autonomy for separatist-held areas.

“The pseudo-elections undermined the law and aggravated the situation . . . We are ready to provide broad powers laid down in the law only to the legally elected local government, not to the bandits who coronate themselves,” Mr Poroshenko said.

People’s republics

The separatists say their “people’s republics” are no longer part of Ukraine, and offer to negotiate with Kiev’s leaders as equals about carving off industrial Donetsk and Luhansk from the rest of the country.

They have also said that ultimately they want to join Russia, but Moscow has not offered to annexe the regions as it did Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March. Russia also denies supplying the militants with weapons and military reinforcements.

“Ukraine sees the solving of this issue by exclusively peaceful means,” Mr Poroshenko said, while outlining preparations to repulse a possible rebel advance.

“Several new [military] units and groups have been formed which will allow immediately for a possible offensive on Mariupol, Berdyansk, Kharkiv and northern Luhansk,” he said, referring to areas on the fringes of separatist -held territory.

“Today the Ukrainian state is forced to stop this cancerous tumour from spreading, and to ensure a certain blockade of this territory,” Mr Poroshenko said, claiming that “chaos, theft . . . [a] sharp fall in living standard . . . [and] banditry” were plaguing the militant-run areas.

“I don’t exclude that we also may be forced to make the economic regime tougher,” he added, while insisting humanitarian aid would flow to the east and that when Kiev regained control of rebel regions, a special fund would help it recover from an artillery barrage that has wrecked some housing and infrastructure.

Russian-hating ‘fascists’

Many people in eastern towns condemn Ukraine’s new pro-western leaders over a military campaign that has seen army shells strike civilian areas, and they repeat Moscow’s claim that the country is now run by Russian-hating “fascists”.

Mr Poroshenko said Kiev was determined to look after residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and was providing electricity and gas without receiving payment.

The EU's foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, sounded a gloomy note, saying the rebel elections "risk to put in serious danger the path of dialogue and peace . . . This is the main risk now that I see.'"

After talks with Ms Mogherini, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance saw "Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine".

“Russia continues to support separatists by training them, by providing equipment and support them by also having Russian special forces inside eastern parts of Ukraine,” he added.