Ukraine
armoured vehicles skirmished with separatists on the edge of Slavyansk,
but stopped short of attacking the town. Photograph: Pierre Crom/Le
Journal/Sipa/Rex
By late
afternoon on Thursday it was a surprisingly tranquil scene. A few people
stood and chatted at a militia checkpoint leading into Slavyansk over a
bridge. A Russian tricolour flew above a wall of tyres. Next to it was
the flag of the "Donetsk People's Republic". The armed pro-Russian
separatists who hijacked the town in eastern
Ukraine almost three weeks ago were still in business. Earlier they had fended off a demonstrative mini-attack by the Ukrainian army.
Six
miles down the road, past several crumbling Soviet-era factories and a
sliver of forest, was a crossroads. Here, the Ukrainian forces had set
up a new checkpoint of their own. Soldiers dressed in black body armour
and helmets inspected vehicles driving up and down in the afternoon
sunshine. An armoured personnel carrier half-blocked the road; from the
adjacent field came the clang of shovels, as troops dug in for the
night.
"We arrived here this morning," Dima, a 21-year-old
Ukrainian soldier said. What were his orders? "We've been told to search
all cars. The idea is to stop any weapons from reaching Slavyansk." A
giant blue and yellow Ukrainian flag flew from Dima's armoured vehicle.
"It's a BMD-1. Good but old," he said. Another soldier, 30-year-old
Vyacheslav, said his battalion, the 25th, had arrived from the city of
Dnipropetrovsk.
Earlier on Thursday, other Ukrainian armoured
vehicles had skirmished with separatists on the outskirts of the city.
The column destroyed several militia checkpoints, transforming
ramshackle barricades into smouldering rubber pyres. The assault took
place in several places. The troops cleared a militia blockade next to a
disused animal feed factory, as well as another rustic roadblock to the
city's north-west.
On Tuesday, Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov had
announced the "anti-terrorist operation" against pro-Russian gunmen
who control a patchwork of municipal buildings across the Donbass
region of eastern Ukraine. For a moment on Thursday it appeared
Ukrainian troops were about to storm Slavyansk – a small, usually sleepy
provincial town, which has become the de facto rebel capital.
After
burning down a couple of barricades, however, the army pulled out,
retreating towards the nearby town of Malynovka. According to the
pro-Russian militia, one man waiting at a bus stop was killed in the
morning shoot-out, and another injured. Vyacheslav Ponomarev – the
self-appointed mayor of Slavyansk – said mines planted in a field had
blocked the advance. He said that he would turn the town into a second
Stalingrad. But Ukrainian forces seemed reluctant to play the role of
aggressors.
Opinions among locals were divided as to who was to
blame for this not-quite war. "Everything inside the city is peaceful
now. There are no Ukrainian troops there," said Alexander, a 43-year-old
taxi driver. "But what government uses an army against its own people?
It's a crime. The army is supposed to defend us, not attack us. These
people in power in Kiev don't listen." Alexander complained that gunfire
was bad for business, adding that the price of water in Slavyansk was
extortionate, even though the city sits on Donetsk's northern canal.
Another
local, Oleg, however, was scathing about the heavily-armed militia who
had taken over Slavyansk's executive committee building and police
station. The government in Kiev says that among the militia are
undercover Russian soldiers who first appeared in Crimea when Moscow
launched its stealth invasion of the Black Sea peninsula. Ukrainians
have nicknamed these masked Russian forces who carry automatic weapons
but no insignia "little green men".
"How would you like it if 400
little green men turned up and took over your town?" Oleg – who declined
to give his second name – wanted to know. "Obviously it's crap. We have
guys roaming the streets with guns and masks."
But didn't the
public support them? "No. We have a couple of million voters here. Five
thousand people can't decide for everyone." He said Slavyansk's existing
legislative structures were still intact – a local council, and an
elected mayor, now imprisoned by the militia. "People voted for her,"
Oleg said bitterly.
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Internationally recognized symbol. by Cary Bass
