Ukrainian forces have been ordered to retreat from the main airport in the eastern city of Luhansk after clashes with a Russian tank battalion, Ukrainian military sources said on Monday.

Advertising Read more

"Ukrainian soldiers received an order and made an organised retreat from the Luhansk airport and Georgiyivka village," spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

"Judging by the precision of the strikes, professional artillery men of the Russian armed forces are the ones firing," he added.

An earlier military statement said Ukrainian paratroopers were fighting a Russian tank battalion in a bid to hold onto the airport outside Luhansk, a separatist stronghold on the border with Russia.

The airport and Georgiyivka are located several kilometres to the south of the rebel stronghold town of Luhansk.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said in a speech that there would be high-level personnel changes in the Ukrainian armed forces, whose troops fled a new rebel advance in the south which Kiev’s Western allies say has been backed up by Russian armoured columns.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who called on Sunday for immediate negotiations on “statehood” for southeastern Ukraine, blamed Kiev’s leadership for refusing to enter into direct political talks with the separatists.

Speaking during a visit to Siberia, Putin repeated his call for talks. “The current Kiev leadership does not want to carry out a substantive political dialogue with the east of its country,” state news agency Itar-Tass cited him as telling journalists.

Asked if “New Russia”, a term pro-Moscow rebels use for their territory, should still be part of Ukraine, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Of course.”

“Only Ukraine can reach an agreement with New Russia, taking into account the interests of New Russia, and this is the only way to reach a political settlement,” Peskov said.

Putin also said he hoped “common sense” would prevail in the West over the possibility of imposing additional economic sanctions.

China also weighed in on the issue, saying more economic measures would only complicate the crisis while German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that accepting Russia’s behaviour was not an option.

Until last week Ukraine had appeared close to crushing the four-month-old rebellion in the east, which erupted after a pro-Moscow president was forced out of power by popular protests. But then the rebels opened a new front to the south on the coast of the Sea of Azov, pushing towards the city of Mariupol.

Poroshenko repeated Kiev’s belief that Russian forces are helping the rebels to turn the tide of the war.

“Direct and open aggression has been launched against Ukraine from a neighbouring state. This has changed the situation in the zone of conflict in a radical way,” he said in a speech at a military academy in Kiev.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe