President Putin sprang a seven-point peace plan on Ukraine yesterday that demands the retreat of Kiev’s forces across the east of the country. The plan, drafted by Mr Putin on an aircraft, could lay the foundations for an end to fighting across swathes of the region.
However, Ukraine’s prime minister dismissed the move as an attempt to formalise Moscow’s control over the Donbass region of east Ukraine. “Putin’s true plan is to ruin Ukraine and restore the Soviet Union,” Arseniy Yatseniuk said.
The terms, which Mr Putin said he hoped Kiev and separatist rebels could agree at peace talks in Belarus tomorrow, would compel Ukraine to pull its forces back from all populated areas in the combat zone, effectively leaving all occupied towns and cities to the rebels.
There was widespread scepticism as to whether an agreement could be enforced; during the previous ten-day ceasefire in June, government forces said that they were fired on more than 100 times. President Obama said that a ceasefire could only work if Russia stopped sending troops to Ukraine.
There was also concern that the offer, drafted on a flight to Mongolia, was a distraction to confuse Nato on the eve of a summit that starts today in Wales and to dissuade a divided European Union from imposing fresh sanctions.
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However, with the death toll from the five-month conflict almost up to 2,600 and more than a million people driven from their homes, the possibility of a solution was welcomed by many ordinary Ukrainians.
The grim expression on the face of one government soldier guarding a checkpoint on the edge of the southeastern port city of Mariupol cracked into a huge smile when he first heard about the mooted deal.
Mr Putin’s attempt to seize the initiative comes despite Russia’s insistence that it is playing no part in the conflict. However, a Sky News crew yesterday filmed well-armed troops who appeared to be wearing recent-issue Russian camouflage, helmets and body armour with the insignia removed more than ten miles inside Ukraine on the coast road west of Novoazovsk.
Hopes of a breakthrough first appeared yesterday morning when President Poroshenko tweeted: “As a result of my conversation with Russian President we reached an agreement on a permanent ceasefire on Donbass [the area of southeast Ukraine].” He had spoken to the Russian leader at 5am and the Kremlin had already said that the two men had found during the conversation that their views on the way out of the conflict “largely” coincided.
Stocks in Europe surged on the news. Then, humiliatingly for Mr Poroshenko, Mr Putin’s spokesman denied the existence of any deal.
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Dmitry Peskov said that the two men had “discussed how to end the conflict”, but had not negotiated a truce because Russia was not party to the conflict — a position Moscow insists on in spite of widespread sighting of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. When serving Russian soldiers died and were captured inside Ukraine, it was said they had been lost or on holiday.
Kiev and Western governments say that Moscow has been arming the rebels for months, and that it stepped up its support in recent weeks when the rebels were close to defeat.
Ukrainian forces have been routed since then, driven back by what survivors describe as overwhelming firepower. A military official said yesterday that the bodies of 87 dead Ukrainian fighters had been taken from one town, Ilovaysk.
A pro-Russian rebel leader said that the insurgents would not honour any ceasefire until all Ukrainian forces had left the region. On Mr Poroshenko’s website, his initial statement was adjusted to clarify that a “ceasefire regime”, not a ceasefire, had been agreed. Explosions on the outskirts of Donetsk indicated that fighting was continuing.
Then Mr Putin’s plane landed in Ulan Bator. He said that he thought he and Mr Poroshenko’s positions were “very close”. He called for an immediate end to “active offensive operations” by both sides, an unconditional prisoner exchange, humanitarian corridors for refugees, “full and objective” international monitoring of the truce, an end to airstrikes on civilians and urgent rebuilding of infrastructure.
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The biggest stumbling block is likely to be his second point: withdrawing Ukrainian military units “to a distance that would make it impossible to fire on populated areas using artillery”.