‘Tens of thousands will die unless Russia is stopped’

Pro-Russian rebels, who Nato says have been reinforced by more than 1,000 serving Russian soldiers and large quantities of military hardware, have won decisive victories against Kiev’s forces on three fronts.

Having pushed government troops and volunteer fighters out of the towns of Novoazovsk and Illovaysk in the south and centre of the combat zone, they dislodged them from Luhansk airport in the north, Kiev’s most important bridgehead outside the second-largest city in rebel hands.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope during talks between the rebels and Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Minsk when the separatists softened their previous demands for complete independence from Kiev.

A statement carried by Russian media that they were willing to consider “the preservation of the united economic, cultural and political space of Ukraine” in exchange for sweeping powers and a full amnesty could mark a significant shift in attempts to find a peaceful solution to the five-month conflict in which an estimated 2,600 people have died.

European leaders have given Russia a deadline of the end of the week to de-escalate the increasingly violent crisis in eastern Ukraine or face fresh economic sanctions.

As negotiations between Kiev, Moscow and the rebel separatists began in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, President Poroshenko accused Russia of “direct and undisguised aggression” towards his country which, he said, had enabled pro-Russian rebels spectacularly to reverse the tide of the fighting in the east of the country in the past week.

The heavy defeats inflicted upon Ukrainian troops and pro-Kiev volunteer battalions would have been possible only with direct Russian military involvement, say Kiev, Nato and western governments.

Mr Putin was quoted yesterday by Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper as threatening that Russian forces could overrun the Ukrainian capital “in two weeks” if he ordered them in.

“If I want, I can take Kiev in two weeks,” he told the EU leader, José Manuel Barroso during talks last weekend on the Ukraine crisis. The newspaper said Mr Putin’s words implied that further sanctions against Russia could provoke him to such action.

The separatist insurgency in east Ukraine erupted in April, when armed men seized a number of towns and strategic sites across the region. It came after the annexation by Russia of Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula, in March, despite an international outcry. Moscow has consistently denied any involvement in the revolt in east Ukraine.

Government forces suffered heavy casualties in recent days after becoming encircled at the town of Ilovaysk, and were driven back from Novoazovsk, on the coast road to Mariupol, last week.

There were reports yesterday of fighting at Donetsk airport, which the Ukrainian army has held for all but a few hours of the five-month conflict. Officials said that nearly 700 Ukrainian soldiers have been taken prisoner since the rebel counter-offensive began.

Valeriy Geletey, Ukraine’s defence minister, wrote in a Facebook post: “A great war has arrived at our doorstep the likes of which Europe has not seen since the Second World War. Unfortunately, the losses in such a war will be measured not in the hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands.”

He said that “hundreds of Russian soldiers and officers have permanently entered Ukraine’s [eastern] black earth region” to shore up rebels who had, effectively, been defeated. He added: “Ukraine has no plans to surrender.”

With their negotiating positions strengthened by the recent battlefield gains, the Kremlin and the rebels both indicated that they were ready for a political settlement. President Putin accused Ukraine of resisting a peace settlement. “The current Kiev leadership does not want to carry out a substantive political dialogue with the east of its country,” he said on a visit to Siberia.

In Moscow, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, ruled out a Russian “military intervention” in Ukraine and said that he was counting on the Minsk discussions to agree on an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. However, the talks were adjourned after several hours until Friday.

Rebel representatives had earlier told Russian media that they had dropped their demand for full independence and now aspired to a “special status” for their regions within Ukraine. They expected amnesty from prosecution, responsibility for their regions’ security and a settlement that would “take into consideration the necessity of deepening economic integration with Russia”. How that could work with Ukraine’s stated commitment to closer economic ties with the European Union was unclear.

David Cameron earlier accused Russia of attempting to coerce Ukraine into policy changes, and warned that it would have a “radically different” relationship with the rest of the world if it did not change course.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, who was elected as the next president of the European Council on Saturday, said that the war could spread beyond Ukraine if Nato did not toughen its stance against Russia.

“There is still time to stop those for whom violence, force and aggression have again become part of their political arsenal,” he said, in a clear reference to Moscow during ceremonies to mark Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1, 1939, which was swiftly followed by the Soviet Union’s attack on the country.

Seventy five years on, “our western community is threatened by war, not just in eastern Ukraine”, he said.