Separatists launch intense battle to enter Debaltseve, where fighting has taken place in defiance of ceasefire deadline to remove heavy weapons from frontline

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Fighting raged in the Ukrainian railway hub of Debaltseve on Tuesday, as a deadline for removing heavy weapons from the frontlines came and went unheeded undermining a shaky three-day old ceasefire.

Rebels who claimed a “moral” imperative to fight for the town closed in on government soldiers, trapped in bombed out ruins and fast running out of food and supplies after days under siege.

Rebels claimed they had captured the town and hundreds of government soldiers. The Ukrainian defence ministry conceded that some parts of the town – now largely reduced to a bombed-out wasteland – had fallen, but said only a few men were taken prisoner and troops were still fighting in the streets.



“Street fighting is continuing. Rebels are attacking the town with assault groups backed by artillery and armoured vehicles,” the ministry said, according to Reuters. “Part of the town has been seized by the bandits.”

The rest of the conflict zone appeared calm three days after a halt in hostilities negotiated by Russian, Ukrainian, French and German leaders came into effect.

If separatist claims, reported by the Associated Press, are true and the rebels have captured Debaltseve, it would be a critical prize for the pro-Russia forces.

The size of the town – it was home to around 25,000 people before the war emptied its streets – belies its importance to rebels as the site of the rail junction connecting their strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk. It has been under siege for days.

Location of Debaltseve, Ukraine

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, sought to delay the ceasefire agreed last week by 10 days, because he wanted to give separatists time to capture the town, an EU summit was told last week.

When it went ahead, rebel leaders apparently gambled that they could keep fighting for Debaltseve, while putting down their guns elsewhere.

That meant a Tuesday provision to move artillery back from the frontlines, which would have made the ceasefire harder to reverse, was ignored by both sides.

The separatists had been shelling government troops holed up in Debaltseve for days, but on Tuesday launched a more intense battle to enter the town.

A senior rebel representative had earlier told Reuters as the fighting raged that “morally” his forces could not stop fighting for control of the town.

“We do not have the right [to stop fighting for Debaltseve]. It’s even a moral thing. It’s internal territory,” Denis Pushilin said in Donetsk. “We have to respond to fire, to work on destroying the enemy’s fighting positions.”

Albert Sardaryen, a Ukrainian national guard medic in Debaltseve, told the Guardian that pro-Russia forces were in parts of the city and that his unit had exchanged close-quarters machine gun fire with rebels on Tuesday. He had to cut the conversation short when mortar fire began landing nearby.

Since the start of the ceasefire a minute after midnight on Sunday, rebel forces fired on Ukrainian positions 164 times, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

Berlin announced on Tuesday both sides had agreed “concrete measures” to allow international observers, from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to monitor the ceasefire. They have not been able to access Debaltseve yet.

Ukrainian soldiers inside the town have been virtually cut off from the rest of the country’s forces. More than half the city has been destroyed by shelling and fires, and the troops are running low on ammunition and supplies, soldiers in one group that broke out of Debaltseve on Sunday told the Guardian.

Their column of seven trucks had come under heavy fire from rebel positions, and two of the vehicles were destroyed.

Ambulance drivers who have been trying to make it through to Debaltseve said both the highway connecting it to the main Ukrainian lines and the nearby fields have been mined, and rebel guns shoot at any vehicles moving across the 10-mile stretch of no man’s land.

It has been impossible to use the highway since 8 February, said Alla Neschadym, a national guard medic whose son Oleg is fighting in Debaltseve.