Andrew E. Kramer
February 14, 2015
ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — The United States released satellite images on Saturday meant to bolster its case that Russia has joined separatists in an all-out assault on the Ukrainian Army during the window before a midnight cease-fire is to take effect.
When the pact was announced Thursday, some last-minute jockeying for position was expected before the cease-fire went into effect. Instead, a bloody free-for-all, alarming in its scope and intensity, ensued on the snowy steppe south of here, near the contested town of Debaltseve.
The three satellite images, posted on Twitter by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, showed landscapes in tones of gray, tracks in snowy fields and streaking plumes of smoke. The posts reiterated an assertion Friday by the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, who said, “We are confident these are Russian military, not separatist systems.”
One image purported to show four gun lines of towed artillery and one of self-propelled artillery northeast of Debaltseve. Another showed what Mr. Pyatt said were air defense systems, and the third showed the black, streaky exhaust plumes of what was labeled a “Russian multiple rocket launcher deployment” near Shakhtar, Ukraine.
The intensity and scope of the violence raised concerns that the agreement signed this week, which was rife with ill-defined and ambiguous provisions, might prove as ineffective as did the first cease-fire pact, which was signed in September.
The Group of 7 industrialized democracies and the European Union issued a joint statement of “concern about the situation in Ukraine” and the fighting for Debaltseve. The Group of 7, it said, was ready to impose additional sanctions on Russia.
Russian-backed militias, the statement said, are now “operating beyond the line of contact agreed upon in the Minsk agreements of September 2014, causing numerous civilian casualties.”
In another sign of Western concern, the Canadian government intends to provide the Ukrainian military with satellite radar images to assist troops in the east, Defense Minister Jason Kenney said in an interview with CBC Radio. The intelligence data was “the single biggest ask of Ukrainian President Poroshenko when he was in Ottawa in September,” Mr. Kenney said.
In Ukraine, shelling was reported to have killed at least four children in several incidents Friday.
Artillery shelling and gunfire continued to reverberate in the area around Debaltseve on Saturday. The town is a strategic rail hub where rebels were said to have severed the last land route into town, leaving government forces surrounded. At least 18 people were reported to have died there since the cease-fire.
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