According to the “protocol” of the cease-fire agreement signed Friday in Minsk and released Sunday by the OSCE, the agreement opens the door, still unclear, a “special status” for outfits regions by separatists and elections for the Donetsk and Lugansk, pro-Russian rebel strongholds.
“A woman was killed and three people were injured Mariupol” in the night from Saturday to Sunday said the mayor of this strategic port in south-eastern Ukraine. According to local authorities, the rebels, who have been trying for several days to capture the last major town still under Ukrainian control, fired at night on a checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of the city and destroyed a gas station.
Donetsk, an AFP journalist heard Sunday at a checkpoint near the airport, under the control of the army, with artillery fire. It was not possible to determine their origin. Earlier Sunday, calm had returned to Mariupol however, but the signs of the battles of the night were clearly visible near the point of Ukrainian control.
A totally destroyed truck burned to the edge of the road and several buildings nearby were damaged, windows blown out. The checkpoint was still occupied by the Ukrainian forces. Twenty men were visible, and three tanks. “The shooting started around 10:30 p.m.” (7:30 p.m. GMT), told AFP Pacha, a fighter battalion of Vinnitsa.
“They (pro-Russian) shooting with four howitzers. They shot the checkpoint and tents, “he said, assuring that the Ukrainian military have” no casualties. ” “You see what kind of cease-fire there on the Russian side,” he quips.
A few hours earlier, the Ukrainian and Russian presidents Poroshenko Vladimir Putin had felt during a telephone interview that the cease-fire was signed on Friday in Minsk “generally respected”.
Intended to end a conflict of nearly five months in a region that has, according to UN, 2,600 deaths and the departure of half a million people, the cease-fire was met with skepticism by Westerners.
Saturday morning, rebel and government forces had each charged with violating the cease-fire by firing on their positions in and around the rebel strongholds of Donetsk and Lugansk.
desires for independence
The declaration of the cease-fire is a success for the insurgents and Russia, to the extent that it seems to endorse the loss to Kiev several eastern cities after the victorious advance in recent weeks rebels, aided on the ground by the Russian military, according to the West that Moscow denies.
The rebels Saturday demanded their “independence” after talks in Minsk between the “contact group” comprising . Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the separatists
Sunday, Amnesty International referred back to back sides: “All parties the dispute showed indifference towards the lives of civilians and blatantly disregard their international obligations, “denounced the secretary general of the association Salil Shetty.
Photos satellite support Amnesty also believes that it appears “clear that Russia has the conflict, both through its direct interference by the support it gives to the separatists in eastern Ukraine.”
The truce announced in Minsk has also not convinced the West that have in recent days accused Russia of regular troops deployed in eastern Ukraine, although Moscow has always denied any involvement in the field.
The 28 members of the European Union states agreed Friday to new sanctions against Russia, which will be formally adopted Monday. But Russia warned on Saturday it would react in the event of further economic sanctions.
Meanwhile, NATO leads to the September 10 military exercises in the Baltic countries, Germany and Poland, which indicated “loud and clear” that NATO is ready to defend its members, said Saturday in Riga a senior, General Hans-Lothar Domrose.
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