Ukraine-Russia ceasefire jeopardised by fresh attacks

Ukraine on Sunday sought to maintain a tenuous cease-fire with pro-Russian rebels after a series of breaches endangered the truce, with officials in the eastern city of Mariupol saying one woman was killed and three were wounded in fighting overnight.

‘The Ukrainian government still believes in the cease-fire despite the violations,’ Volodymyr Poleviy, deputy spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Defense Council, said Sunday.

Pro-Russian separatists and, according to Ukrainian and NATO officials, troops from Russia itself have taken up positions east of the key port city of Mariupol. Poleviy said rebel forces launched a limited rocket attack on Ukrainian military positions beginning late Saturday. 

Russia has denied it has sent troops or arms to aid the rebels.There were also signs of limited progress. Ukrainian officials said Sunday that prisoner swaps agreed to as part of the truce had begun Saturday, with two privates from the 9th Battalion of Ukraine’s territorial defenses released at a checkpoint in the eastern Luhansk region.

Boris Litvinov, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of the main rebel groups, said skirmishes had broken out after the cease-fire but would not say which side was instigating the violations. He charged the Ukrainian military with using the truce to bolster its positions with additional troops and equipment in the east.

‘The truce is on paper, but the battles are continuing,’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘I don’t want to be a prophet, but I am sure that in the next day the Ukrainian army will start attacking again, but we do not want more causalities.’

On Sunday, the full 12-point cease-fire agreement was finally published, two days after it was signed in Minsk, Belarus. The brevity of the truce deal — consisting of a page-and-a-half of text — underlined just how much work remained to be done for a stable peace to be achieved.

The document offered few specifics about the political future of the separatist regions. But it hinted at some potentially significant concessions by Ukraine, including a pledge to implement ‘decentralization of power’ in the restive east and the adoption of a law granting a ‘temporary procedure of local self-governance in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.’

Ukraine and the rebels, however, have differed sharply on what decentralization of power would effectively mean on the ground, with the Ukrainian government in Kiev rebuffing demands for broad autonomy. In addition, the participants promised to continue an ‘inclusive national dialogue,’ an echo of similar resolutions that for months have made little headway.

Late Saturday, Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page that there had been ‘violations of the cease-fire from Russia,’ with Grad rockets fired 16 times at Ukrainian positions ‘from Russian territory.’ He said Ukrainian forces in Mariupol were being reinforced with additional troops, including the First Brigade of the National Guard.

Mariupol, 25 miles west of the Russian border, is at the maximum of the multiple rocket launcher’s typical range, and it was not clear whether Avakov was referring to an assault on the city.

There was no immediate response from Russia, but the Kremlin has in the past denied Ukrainian accusations that it is firing on Ukraine from its territory.

‘Are you surprised that Putin is treacherous?’ Avakov wrote, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘This has not canceled our determination to defend Mariupol.’