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 Moscow denies sending troops into eastern Ukraine to support
pro-Russian rebels battling Ukrainian forces, despite what Kiev and
its Western backers say is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Moscow also denies arming the separatists.
President Petro Poroshenko told a televised cabinet meeting Ukraine
would remain a sovereign, united country under the terms of a peace
roadmap approved last Friday, but said parts of the east under rebel
control would get special status.
"According to the latest information I have received from our
intelligence, 70 percent of Russian troops have been moved back
across the border," he said. "This further strengthens our hope that
the peace initiatives have good prospects."
However, Poroshenko said the ceasefire was not proving easy to
maintain because "terrorists" were constantly trying to provoke
Kiev's forces.
Ukraine's military recorded at least six violations of the ceasefire
overnight but said there were no casualties. Five servicemen have
been killed during the ceasefire, Ukraine says. A civilian was also
killed at the weekend during shelling of the eastern port of
Mariupol on the Sea of Azov in eastern Ukraine.
Poroshenko said Ukraine was regrouping its forces in eastern
Ukraine, not in preparation for a new offensive against the rebels,
as the separatists themselves have suggested, but in order to defend
territory from possible attack.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Poroshenko
were broadly satisfied with how the ceasefire, in place for nearly
five days, was holding in Ukraine. The two leaders spoke by phone on
Tuesday for the second time this week.
OLIVE BRANCH
In his televised remarks, Poroshenko offered the rebels an olive
branch by saying he would propose a bill next week offering "special
status" to parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern
Ukraine they now control.
But he was adamant in rejecting the separatists' demands for full
independence for their regions and the kind of radical
"federalization" favored by Russia.
"The Minsk protocol envisages the restoration and preservation of
Ukrainian sovereignty on all the territory of the Donbass (in
eastern Ukraine), including that controlled by the fighters,"
Poroshenko said.
City authorities in Mariupol, a key frontline in the conflict,
announced on Wednesday tough new security measures including a
night-time curfew to help control rebel movements.
Underlining the complexity of the conflict, armed Chechen fighters
in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk told Reuters they had come to
Ukraine to take revenge on "Russian invaders" who they said had
destroyed their own North Caucasus homeland.
"They (the Russians) took everything from us, I had to bury all my
relatives, my daughter ... We are here now on a mission to save
Ukraine," said their commander, Isa Munayev, who said he now had a
Danish passport.
Russia waged two wars in the 1990s against separatists in Chechnya,
a small, mainly Muslim republic in the North Caucasus. But other
Chechens, loyal to the region's current pro-Moscow ruler, are now
fighting in Ukraine on the rebels' side
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The conflict in Ukraine has plunged relations between Russia and the
West to their lowest point since the Cold War.
Putin accused NATO on Wednesday of using the Ukraine crisis to
"resuscitate itself". He also signed a decree taking direct charge
of a commission that oversees Russia's defense industry as Moscow
tries to reduce reliance on Western equipment.
At a summit last week in Wales, NATO pledged support for non-member
Ukraine in its efforts to tackle the separatist rebellion and
announced plans to beef up the defense of alliance members in
eastern Europe, including the Baltic republics.
The European Union and United States have imposed economic sanctions
against Russia over its role in Ukraine, prompting Moscow to
retaliate by banning most Western food imports.
The EU has prepared another wave of sanctions targeting Russia's
banking and energy sectors but has held off implementing them to see
whether the ceasefire holds.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU's most powerful leader, said
in Berlin that the 28-nation bloc should go ahead with the new
sanctions, adding it could always suspend them later if there was
progress towards a durable peace in Ukraine.
Poroshenko signed a law on Wednesday allowing Ukraine to impose its
own sanctions against Russian firms and individuals deemed to be
backing the separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In Prague, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), which is monitoring the ceasefire, said it would be
reasonable to allow more time for the peace process before imposing
more sanctions against Russia.
Didier Burkhalter, who is president of Switzerland, said the OSCE
would soon deploy drones to monitor the ceasefire.
Human rights group Amnesty International said in Moscow it had
documented evidence of war crimes by both sides and also repeated
criticism of Russia's role in the conflict.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Dnipropetrovsk,
Aleksandar Vasovic in Mariupol, Reuters bureaux in Moscow, Prague
and Berlin; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
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