Defying NATO, Ignoring Ceasefire, Russian-Backed Troops Keep Rolling

Ted Phillips

09.04.14 

Pro-Russian separatists backed by Russian troops are closing in on Mariupol, the strategic city that stands between them and a land route to Crimea. 

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Volunteer battalions outside Mariupol retreated Thursday after shelling and mortar fire hit positions just outside the city. As evening fell, the staccato thunder of Grad missiles could be heard close enough so the noise rumbled through the center of town. 

All this ratcheted up fears that a much-anticipated Russian-backed assault on this strategic industrial port is now underway—and indeed it might be. But the sleight-of-hand war being waged here in eastern Ukraine, and exploited so effectively by Russian President Vladimir Putin, can sometimes make it hard to distinguish feints from offensives. 

Mariupol has been on edge since pro-Russian troops seized the border town of Novoazovsk near the Russian border last week, prompting international denunciations of a Russian “invasion,” said Kiev, or “incursion,” said Washington. Much of the NATO summit in Wales on Thursday was consumed with talk about how best to deter Russia from further aggressions by imposing new sanctions. 

Scores of haggard soldiers from Ukrainian volunteer battalions walked back into the city as puffs of black smoke rose behind them. 

The attack comes after what seemed an agreementby Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier this week to work on a ceasefire. Some analysts suspected that Putin was just playing for time, but Poroshenko reportedly expected to declare a ceasefire on Friday. 

It is no longer clear that the ceasefire can go forward, with reports now multiplying that the separatist rebels and their Russian backers have moved out of Novoazovsk and are rolling toward Mariupol, which stands between them and a land bridge to the Russian-annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. 

At Mariupol’s Eastern checkpoint around 5 p.m., scores of haggard soldiers from volunteer battalions walked back into the city as puffs of black smoke rose behind them. 

“We want to stop them [the Russians] here, we can’t lose our city, Mariupol,” said Dmytro Lynko a commander of the Shakhtar volunteer battalion. “It’s the last big city in Donbass [eastern Ukraine] that is ours.” Soldiers said they were attacked with artillery, tanks, mortars and Grad missiles. But “our generals will do everything possible to stop the Russian army,” Lynko said. 

Seizing Mariupol would be a major blow to Ukraine, which had been winning the war in the east in recent months. 

One soldier from the Azov Battalion, a volunteer brigade, said it was attacked in Vynohradne, a suburb adjacent to the city. 

Fellow volunteers helped a wounded soldier from the Azov Batallion climb out of a car at a Ukraine National Guard checkpoint. He stood on one leg and led a cheer of “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the heroes,” and then, “Azov! Azov! Azov!” A Ukrainian translator from Kiev said the soldier spoke with a Swedish accent. There are volunteers of several stripes on both sides of this fight. 

Sergii Taruta, Ukraine’s governor of the embattled Donetsk region, said that there had been no retreat.