Ukraine border guards 'attacked'
Hundreds of armed insurgents have attacked a border guards’ camp in eastern Ukraine leaving at least five rebels dead, a spokesman for the guards said.
Rebels in uniform near the Luhansk base promised safety for the officers if they surrendered and laid down their arms.
The rebels, who have seized government and police buildings across east Ukraine and hope to join the region to Russia, have waged increasingly aggressive attacks on government-held checkpoints and garrisons in an attempt to seize weapons and ammunition from Ukrainian forces.
Serhiy Astakhov, the spokesman for the border guard service, said that a preliminary assessment indicated that five rebels were killed and eight injured in the attack on the camp in Luhansk, a major city not far from the Russian border. He also said even servicemen were injured, three seriously.
The initial attack by about 100 insurgents was met by firing from the border guards, and the number of attackers swelled to around 400 a few hours later. Mr Astakhov said the fighting was continuing and that the Ukrainian forces had sent an plane to the area, but still had been unable to quell the attack.
An Associated Press reporter saw at least one dead rebel soldier about a kilometre away from the base. Fellow fighters approached and broke into tears as they viewed the body.
Though there appeared to be a lull in the fighting around 1.00pm local time, it was unclear whether the battle had ended or whether the rebels were preparing to mount another attack. There was no clear evidence of the Ukrainian troops’ air dispatch to the region.
One fighter in uniform, who gave his name as Vlad Sevastopolsky, said pro-Russian militants have surrounded the base but offered Ukrainian troops a safe corridor out, as long as they surrender their weapons. The fighter is from a rebel group based in the town of Antratsyt, another town in the Luhansk region.
Vladislav Seleznyov, press secretary for Ukraine’s operation against the rebels in the east, described the base as an important co-ordinating node for border guards across the province, and said the attack may have been an attempt to disrupt communications.
Mr Seleznyov also said there was another rebel attack on a government checkpoint in Slovyansk, a city in the Donetsk region that has been an epicentre of the pro-Russian movement. He said rebels had mined a number of power plants in Slovyansk, which he claimed would be detonated if the government were to move on the city.
For weeks, Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine has been the scene of deadly clashes between government troops and pro-Russian insurgents.
Months of protests during last fall and winter drove pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country. Many in Ukraine’s east are suspicious of the new pro-Western government in Kiev, and protests in favour of greater independence from the Ukrainian capital soon turned into a separatist movement as the Luhansk and Donetsk regions declared independence following hastily called referendums.
The conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine escalated markedly in the past week, with rebels attempting to seize a major airport and the shooting-down of a Ukrainian military helicopter.
In Moscow, the Russian defence ministry announced a military exercise involving the launch of high-precision missiles. The ministry said the manoeuvres of the Western Military District will continue through to Thursday and will involve the deployment of Iskander surface-to-surface missiles.
Moscow did not specify the areas where the exercise will be held and made no mention of the situation in Ukraine.
