Ukraine concerned unrest will spread

Policeman and demonstrator die after explosion at memorial rally

Ukraine said yesterday it feared unrest could spread beyond territory held by pro-Russian separatists, after an explosion killed two people at a memorial rally in an eastern city far from the front line.

Kiev said it arrested four people who had been armed and trained in Russia after the blast, which killed a policeman and a demonstrator at the rally in Kharkiv, the biggest city in the east, 200km from the war zone.

A week after a ceasefire agreement that Moscow-backed rebels ignored, to capture a strategic town, Kiev and its Western allies are trying to determine whether the separatists will now halt, or advance deeper into territory the Kremlin calls “New Russia”.

Germany and France mediated the peace deal that came into effect a week ago, and say they still hope it can be resurrected, even though the rebels ignored it to inflict one of the worst defeats of the war, seizing the town of Debaltseve after encircling thousands of Ukrainian troops.

In signs that there may be at least a pause now that the rebels have achieved that objective, government and separatist forces exchanged prisoners overnight. The rebels said yesterday that they would begin withdrawing artillery from the front.

But Kiev said Moscow was moving more troops and armoury into eastern Ukraine near a port it fears is the next target. Russia denies it has troops in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainians held marches and memorial services yesterday for 100 people killed a year ago during an uprising that toppled a pro-Russian president and led to the war in which more than 5,500 people have since been killed.

At the rally in Kharkiv, amateur footage posted on the internet showed a few hundred marchers with Ukrainian flags, who shouted “glory to the heroes!” just before being hit by an explosion. Demonstrators and bystanders, including a woman pushing a baby in a pram, fled in panic.

A wounded man in military uniform lay in the snow shouting for help.

“Today is memorial Sunday, but on this day terrorist scum revealed its predatory nature,” president Petro Poroshenko said on Facebook. “This is a brazen attempt to expand the territory of terrorism.”

A Reuters journalist at the scene later filmed the bodies of two men lying by the road, draped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and surrounded by shrapnel.

Demonstrator Igor Rossokha told Reuters Television his friend Igor was one of those killed: “We tried to give him first aid, but the paramedics arrived and said he’d died instantly because he was struck in the heart.”

Kiev has long worried that Russia aims to foment instability far beyond regions now held by separatists.

Reuters