CIS

Home page

CIS

Ukrainian forces reclaim port city from rebels

14 June 2014 01:36 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Ukrainian flag fluttered over the regional government headquarters in the strategic port city of Mariupol on Friday after government forces reclaimed the city from pro-Russian separatists in heavy fighting, and said they had regained control of a long stretch of the border with Russia, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The advances are significant victories for the pro-European leadership in a military operation to crush the rebellion, which began in east Ukraine in April, and hold the country together. Parallel peace moves are only moving slowly, however, and Russia is threatening to cut gas supplies to Ukraine from Monday in a row over prices.

In central Mariupol, police cordoned off several streets, where roadblocks of sandbags and concrete blocks, once manned by rebels, were riddled with bullet holes, and the burnt-out hulk of an armoured personnel carrier with rebel insignia smouldered.

"At 10:34 a.m. (0734 GMT), the Ukrainian flag was raised over City Hall in Mariupol," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on Facebook, less than six hours after the attack began on the city of 500,000, Ukraine's biggest port on the Azov Sea.

A ministry aide said government forces had attacked after surrounding the rebels and giving them 10 minutes to surrender. At least five separatists and two servicemen were killed before many of the rebels fled.

A group of about 100 Mariupol residents, who had gathered in the centre to show their opposition to the government's actions, exchanged obscenities and crude gestures with Ukrainian soldiers driving through town in a column of armoured trucks.

"The government brought everything here, including a cannon ... people were not allowed to come and witness how the government was shooting its own citizens," 52-year-old Andrei Nikodimovich said.

Mariupol, which has changed hands several times in weeks of conflict, is strategically important because it lies on major roads from the southeastern border with Russia into the rest of Ukraine, and steel is exported through the port.

Regaining full control of the 2,000-km (1,200-mile) frontier is also vital for the government because it accuses Moscow of allowing the rebels to bring tanks, other armoured vehicles and guns across the border.

Avakov said government forces had won back control of a 120-km (75-mile) stretch of border that had fallen to the rebels, but it was unclear who controlled other parts of the frontier.