Ukraine separatists vow to press on with offensive

The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in east Ukraine says the rebels will 'no longer push for any more truce talks' following a string of successes earlier in the week.

MOSCOW // A top Ukrainian separatist leader said on Friday he would not push for new peace talks with Kiev and warned that his forces were launching a new offensive to expand their control.

Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in east Ukraine, made clear the rebels were in no mood to compromise after making territorial gains in recent weeks.

“Our side will no longer push for any more truce talks,” he said in comments published on a Ukrainian separatist website.

“We are going to advance to the very border of Donetsk province,” he added referring to parts of the war-torn east still under government control.

His comments come as Ukraine said “Russian terrorist groups” have launched a mass new offensive across the frontline dividing the country’s industrial east.

“Russian terrorist groups have essentially violated all prior ceasefire agreements... and are today assuming active offensive operations,” Ukraine’s national security and defence council chief Oleksandr Turchynov said at a televised government meeting.

A ceasefire between government forces and the separatists was agreed last September but has failed to take hold, with each side accusing the other of violating it and fighting increasing this month.

“We are talking about active units of the Russian armed forces,” Mr Turchynov stressed.

Russia has denied sending any forces across the Ukrainian border to support a nine-month rebel revolt that has killed more than 5,000 people and brought the former Soviet republic’s economy to the brink of collapse.

But Kiev this week reported a new tacit deployment of Russian troops into the war zone that enabled the insurgents to push Ukrainian troops out of a long-disputed airport in the rebel stronghold city of Donetsk.

Mr Turchynov has accused Russia of “trying not only to establish control over the occupied territories, but to destroy the national identity and independence of Ukraine”.

The diplomatic standoff over the conflict in Ukraine has pushed relations between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War ended.

First deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov defended Russia’s position at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, warning that Ukraine could be a “bleeding wound for decades” if the West kept telling Russia “to go onto a corner and sit there quietly”.

Peace talks in Berlin last week saw the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine agree to try to arrange new negotiations between Kiev and separatist commanders in the coming days.

However, Donetsk militias are riding a string of recent successes that include control of the airport earlier this week.

Separatist leader Mr Zakharchenko said any new negotiations with Kiev would only concern prisoner swaps.

“Everything happening in the Donetsk People’s Republic reflects the will of the people,” he said using the insurgents’ title for their self-proclaimed state.

“We were born here and raised here, and we will fight for our land.”

Kiev has long argued that rebel units are comprised mostly of Russian nationals who are both feared and mistrusted by a predominant majority of the region’s residents.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters