Ukraine vows firm response after rebels shoot down military plane

Ukraine’s president promised a tough response on Saturday to pro-Russian separatists who shot down an army transport plane, killing 49 servicemen and dealing a blow to a military campaign to crush their uprising. 

Newly installed Petro Poroshenko summoned security chiefs for consultations after the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile as it came in to land at an airport outside the city of Luhansk, a centre of the rebellion in east Ukraine. 

‘All those involved in cynical acts of terrorism of this magnitude must be punished,’ he said, declaring Sunday a day of mourning for the nine crew and 40 paratroopers killed.  He later issued a separate statement saying he had called another meeting of his security chiefs for Monday, and that the armed forces had already intensified their operation — intended to prevent Ukraine from breaking up. 

‘For the sake of peace, we will act decisively and purposefully,’ he said, hailing the seizure of the port city of Mariupol from the rebels on Friday and the recapture of 248 km (155 miles) of the frontier with Russia ‘across which the terrorists get weapons, equipment, reinforcements and money’. 

Charred debris was scattered for hundreds of metres (yards) over the sloping wheat field where the plane came down near Novohannivka, a village 20km (12 miles) southeast of Luhansk.  The tail section jutted up from the ground, with pieces of the engines, fuselage and other parts lying around it. A platoon of rebel forces in camouflage scoured the ruins for ammunition. 

‘This is how we work. The fascists can bring as many reinforcements as they want, but we will do this every time. We will talk to them on our own terms,’ said a stocky 50-year-old rebel who identified himself as Pyotr, his ‘nom de guerre’.  He had an assault rifle in one hand, a light machine gun in the other and two ammunition belts round his neck. Russian tensions with the west 

The death toll was the highest suffered by government forces in a single incident since the crisis flared in February and is likely to fuel tension between Russia and Kiev’s main ally, the United States, which accuses Moscow of arming the rebels. 

In a telephone call with Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk, US secretary of state John Kerry expressed condolences for the servicemen’s deaths.