Ukrainian forces see first east action

They face gunfire, protests at airport

Demonstrators accost Ukrainian Gen. Vasyl Krutov outside the Kramatorsk Airport on Tuesday as he tried to dispel rumors that his troops, which had seized the airport and reportedly repelled attackers, planned to carry out operations against the city of Kramatorsk.
Demonstrators accost Ukrainian Gen. Vasyl Krutov outside the Kramatorsk Airport on Tuesday as he tried to dispel rumors that his troops, which had seized the airport and reportedly repelled attackers, planned to carry out operations against the city of Kramatorsk.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine - In the first Ukrainian military action against a pro-Russian uprising in the east, government forces repelled an attack Tuesday by about 30 gunmen at an airport after seizing it, beginning what the president called an “anti-terrorist operation” to try to restore authority over the region.

photo

AP

Ukrainian soldiers are supplied with grenades and ammunition Tuesday in a field on the outskirts of Izyum in eastern Ukraine. A helicopter, at least 14 armored personnel carriers and military trucks were spotted near Izyum.

The central government has so far been unable to rein in the insurgents, who it says are being stirred up by paid operatives from Russia and have seized numerous government facilities in at least nine eastern cities to press their demands for broader autonomy and closer ties with Russia. Complicating the political landscape, many local security forces have switched to their side.

The clashes Tuesday came at Kramatorsk Airport, just south of the city of Slovyansk, which has come under the increasing control of the pro-Russian gunmen who seized it last weekend.

The precise sequence of events was mired in confusion amid contradictory official claims.

The commander of the Ukrainian operation, Gen. Vasyl Krutov, speaking outside Kramatorsk Airport, said his men managed to thwart an attack by fighters in green military uniforms without insignia who tried to storm the facility in the late afternoon. An Associated Press reporter and camera crew heard rounds of gunfire at the time.

After the armed standoff, hundreds of local people surrounded the airport in response to rumors that government troops were planning to launch a military operation on the city of Kramatorsk. Some in the crowd attempted to enter the military facility, prompting Ukrainian troops to fire bursts of warning shots.

To defuse the situation, Krutov came out to speak to the angry protesters but was attacked by them. After a tussle in which his hat was knocked to the ground, he managed to take refuge in the airport.

There were conflicting reports of casualties.

Yury Zhadobin, coordinator of a pro-Russian defense force, said two people were slightly injured and were taken to a hospital. Russian media, without citing sources, claimed anywhere from four to 11 casualties at the airport. Ukraine’s government said there were no casualties, adding that Ukrainian forces captured an unspecified number of militiamen.

While Krutov spoke of repelling an attack, the new government in Kiev declared that its forces had recaptured the airport from militiamen.

“I just got a call from the Donetsk region: Ukrainian special forces have liberated the airport in the city of Kramatorsk from terrorists,” acting President Oleksandr Turchynov told the parliament.

“I’m convinced that there will not be any terrorists left soon in Donetsk and other regions and they will find themselves in the dock - this is where they belong.”

Hours earlier, Turchynov had announced the start of what he called “an anti-terrorist operation” against the pro-Russian insurgents.

He gave few details, saying only that it would be conducted in a “responsible and balanced” manner to “defend the citizens of Ukraine, to stop terror, stop crime and stop attempts to tear our country into pieces.”

In Washington, President Barack Obama’s administration gave its tacit support to the Ukrainian military action.

While the use of force “is not a preferred option,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “the Ukrainian government has a responsibility to provide law and order. And these provocations in eastern Ukraine are creating a situation in which the government has to respond.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement denouncing the Ukrainian military operation, saying it was “criminal to fight with your own people as they speak out for their legal rights.” The ministry called on Russia’s “international partners” to condemn the actions.

Russia has tens of thousands of troops stationed along its border with Ukraine, raising fears that Moscow might use the instability in the predominantly Russian-speaking east as a pretext for an invasion.

Earlier Tuesday, at least 14 armored personnel carriers flying Ukrainian flags, helicopters and military trucks were seen on a highway some 25 miles north of Slovyansk, along with at least seven busloads of government troops in black military fatigues.

“We are awaiting the order to move on Slovyansk,” said one soldier, who gave only his first name, Taras. Two of the helicopters loaded with troops were later seen flying toward Slovyansk, and witnesses said they delivered several dozen troops at the Kramatorsk Airport.

Masked gunmen at checkpoints in Slovyansk prohibited civilian vehicles from leaving the city, citing Ukrainian military movements on the highway outside the city.

The Ukrainian military on Tuesday established its own checkpoint on the highway north of Slovyansk, which has been controlled by militants since Saturday.

The Ukrainian troops were not yet moving on Slovyansk as of Tuesday evening. Ahead of them, scores of armed men maintained their hold on the police and domestic security service building and the City Hall. They have barricaded the roads and, locals say, placed snipers on roofs.

TWO SIDES’ VIEWS

Tuesday’s events seemed to be viewed entirely differently by Ukraine and Russia.

“We have to tell the Ukrainians the truth: The Russian Federation is waging a real war against Ukraine in the east, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in particular,” said Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s ex-prime minister and a presidential candidate.

She called on the West to “recognize Russia’s aggression against eastern Ukraine as a war.”

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema also accused Russia of sending its troops to Ukraine, saying Kiev has “evidence that those people occupying Slovyansk and Kramatorsk right now are servicemen of the Russian 45th Airborne Regiment.”

Ukraine’s security services identified one of the leaders of the pro-Russian operation in Slovyansk as a Russian foreign intelligence agent, Igor Strelkov, who it said had also coordinated Russian seizures of military facilities in Crimea.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, dismissed the claims as absurd.

The Kremlin has warned the Kiev government that if it uses military force, it could prompt Russia to walk out of an international conference on Ukraine in Geneva on Thursday.

“You can’t send in tanks and at the same time hold talks. The use of force would sabotage the opportunity offered by the four-party negotiations in Geneva,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said Tuesday on Facebook that “Ukraine is on the brink of civil war - it’s frightening.” He warned the authorities in Kiev of “terrible turmoil” if they continued to press the attack.

In a sign of the heightened tension, Ukraine seemed to teeter toward a run on bank deposits Monday. The central bank was compelled to raise one of its key interest rates from 6.5 percent to 9.5 percent to slow the rapid slide of the national currency, the hryvnia, as people withdrew deposits and converted savings into hard currency. The sliding currency also accelerated inflation by increasing the costs of imported goods.

EU, NATO DRAW CLOSER

In the European Union, defense ministers agreed Tuesday to step up cooperation with the U.S.-led NATO defense alliance.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen came to Luxembourg to brief the ministers on what NATO is doing to counter what Western governments have denounced as an ongoing Russian campaign of pressure and intimidation against Ukraine and to seek to “strengthen cooperation” with the trade bloc in the military realm.

“We need to train and exercise more together, for instance the NATO Response Force and the EU battle groups, so that we stand ready for whatever the future may bring,” Rasmussen told journalists.

Many EU members, including Britain, Germany and France, belong to NATO, but some others do not. Non-NATO members in the planned battle groups include Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Austria and Cyprus.

Gen. Patrick de Rousiers of France, chairman of the EU’s Military Committee, said defense ministers in the ensuing discussion appeared in the main to endorse “an increase of relations between the European Union and NATO in all areas,” from development of military capabilities to preparation for and involvement in actual operations.

Maciej Popowski, deputy head of the EU’s External Action Service, said the recent actions of Putin’s government have galvanized EU member governments to “get real” about commitments to defense that many European countries previously made, but let slide in large part because of tough economic times.

Rasmussen told reporters that NATO is planning a threefold response to Moscow’s actions in and around Ukraine: “reinforced defense plans, enhanced exercises and appropriate deployment” to reassure NATO member states nearest Russia that their allies have their back.

Rasmussen said “Russia’s hand” is clearly visible in Ukraine.

“Russia should stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution,” the NATO chief said.

ROOTS OF PROTEST

In a human-rights report released Tuesday, the United Nations said that corruption, a lack of independence of the judiciary and a lack of free elections were among the root causes of popular protests that took place in Ukraine from November to February.

The report said 121 people - the majority of them protesters - died during the protests and there were also numerous accounts of torture and ill-treatment. The U.N. demanded that all violations related to the protests be investigated in order to ensure the accountability of the perpetrators.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also reported that in Crimea it found credible allegations of harassment, arbitrary arrests and torture targeting activists and journalists who did not support the March 16 referendum on joining Russia.

Generally, it said, “corruption remains one of the most serious problems in Ukraine and has affected all human rights, whether civil, political, economic or social, exacerbated inequalities, eroded public trust in state institutions including the justice system, led to impunity and undermined the rule of law.”

Contradicting Russian claims, the report said it found no evidence of “widespread nor systemic” persecution of the nation’s ethnic Russian minority.

While the U.N. found some isolated anti-Semitic incidents and harassment and attacks against ethnic Russians, the violations were “neither widespread nor systemic” in Crimea, the report said.

“Photographs of the Maidan protests, greatly exaggerated stories of harassment of ethnic Russians by Ukrainian nationalist extremists, and misinformed reports of them coming armed to persecute ethnic Russians in Crimea, were systematically used to create a climate of fear and insecurity that reflected on support to integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation,” the U.N. report said, without identifying who created the climate of fear.

The report is based on the findings of Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Information for this article was contributed by Peter Leonard, Yuras Karmanau, Maria Danilova, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Lynn Berry, Vladimir Isachenkov, Julie Pace, John-Thor Dahlburg, Frank Jordans and Christopher Bodeen of The Associated Press; by Andrew E. Kramer of The New York Times; and by Sangwon Yoon of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/16/2014

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