ARTEMIVSK,
Ukraine — The plight of as many as 8,000 Ukrainian troops trapped in
the vicinity of Debaltseve, as well as the prospects for an already fragile truce,
look decidedly dimmer on Monday after a Russian television
correspondent strolled down what was supposed to be a hotly contested
road.
The video on the Russian channel Life News,
if reliable, seemed to prove that the road, the only artery of support
for the Ukrainian troops, was firmly in the hands of the separatists.
The
status of this stretch of potholed asphalt has become a sticking point
in the cease-fire and threatens to unravel the deal. The separatists say
their control of the road means they have the Ukrainians surrounded.
President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine
has denied their claim, because conceding the point would force him
either to negotiate for the release of the trapped soldiers or resume
fighting to extricate them.
A
dozen or so soldiers escaped on Sunday, and on Friday a small group
reportedly managed to walk out through the fields. Otherwise, nobody has
left the town since Thursday.
Already
battered and giving ground after the conflict flared up a month ago,
and fighting against forces they and Western governments say include the
Russians, Ukrainian soldiers had been trying at least to hold onto
their supply line until the cease-fire took effect, at midnight
Saturday. It seems increasingly evident that they failed, putting the
agreement in doubt.
Previously,
this section of road was known to be mined and within range of rebel
artillery, though not occupied by rebel soldiers. The video, with a
backdrop of blown-up tanks and dead Ukrainian soldiers, appeared to show
Russian-backed militants on the road near Logvinovo, about five miles
from Debaltseve.
Having apparently lost on the battlefield, Ukraine
now will appeal for diplomatic pressure on Russia to prevail upon the
separatists to open the road. But European leaders and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia were unable to solve the Debaltseve riddle during intense negotiations in Minsk last week, and it remains an open question whether they can now.
Elsewhere
in eastern Ukraine there were scattered cease-fire violations on
Monday, as the European Union on Monday froze the assets of an
additional 19 individuals and nine entities after delaying the
announcement during the Minsk negotiations.
Ilkka Kanerva, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
issued a statement welcoming the general success of the cease-fire but
deploring “the illegal separatists’ false and counterproductive
insistence that the deal does not apply to Debaltseve, a government-held
town.”
The
security group is playing a central role in monitoring the cease-fire
and, as of midnight Monday, the withdrawal of heavy weapons. The group,
to which the United States and the European powers, including Russia and
Ukraine, belong, has formed the three-way channel with the Ukrainian
forces and the pro-Russian separatists that is supposed to oversee and
carry out the Minsk agreement.
Security
in Debaltseve was so shaky Sunday and early Monday that the group’s
monitors had not yet gained access, said Germany’s Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman, Sawsan Chebli. The State Department said Monday night that
the cease-fire in Ukraine was in jeopardy because of the Russian-backed
separatists, adding that it was monitoring reports that a new column of
Russian equipment was moving toward Debaltseve.
Shelling
continued through the day Monday at several locations in eastern
Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Army reported that five members of a
volunteer battalion had been killed near Mariupol, a port city on the
Azov Sea.
The
cease-fire agreement also seemed to be breaking down on the second of
its 13 points, which called for both sides to begin withdrawing heavy
weapons by midnight Monday.
In
Kiev, an army spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said Ukraine would not pull
back its artillery, tanks and rocket launchers until the first point,
the cease-fire itself, took hold. On the road to Debaltseve on Monday,
Ukrainian rocket-launching trucks rumbled not away from the front lines,
but toward them.
In
turn, Denis Pushilin of the main rebel group, the Donetsk People’s
Republic, said separatist forces would not unilaterally pull back heavy
weapons.
For
war-weary Ukraine, the crumbling truce comes as a heavy blow, and for
none more than the relatives of the surrounded soldiers in Debaltseve.
Barring
a diplomatic solution, “our military should break the cease-fire and
fight back in to get the wounded out,” Alla G. Neschadym, whose son, a
medic, was trapped in Debaltseve, said in an interview, her eyes red
from exhaustion and worry. “That’s the only way. Otherwise, we let them
die.”
Alison Smale contributed reporting from Berlin, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on February 17, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: With Ukrainian Troops Trapped, a Cease-Fire Grows More Fragile.
No comments:
Post a Comment