Ukraine | Rebel leader aims to call up 100,000 as conflict intensifies

Ukranian military vehicles are seen driving on the road towards the town of Artemivsk

A Ukrainian separatist leader ordered a full military mobilization as the conflict with government forces escalated after peace talks failed to secure a truce.
The call-up in 10 days’ time seeks to increase the rebel army to as many as 100,000 people, Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-declared Donetsk republic, said yesterday, according to the separatist-run DAN news service.
The additional troops will be trained and deployed against a Ukrainian military build-up in the south of the conflict zone so that “by spring, they’ll be meeting a different force,” Zakharchenko said, according to DAN.
The order went out as fighting between government forces and rebels in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has intensified, deepening the worst standoff between Russia and the U.S. and Europe since the Cold War. A Saturday meeting in Minsk, Belarus, between Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ended after representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics sought a revision of peace accords and were “not even prepared to discuss” a cease-fire, the OSCE said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called in a telephone conversation on Sunday for “an unconditional and immediate cease-fire, as the conflict is escalating and the number of civilian casualties is growing,” according to a statement on the Ukrainian leader’s website.
Zakharchenko said the rebels will attend no more meetings in Minsk until Ukraine appoints an “official representative,” the Interfax news service reported. Ukrainian former President Leonid Kuchma, who represents Ukraine at the talks, is “a private person,” Zakharchenko said, according to Interfax.
Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE had agreed on a document for discussion in Minsk that included “concrete steps” for a truce, the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, supply of humanitarian aid and the release of prisoners, the group said late Friday. Merkel, Hollande and Poroshenko said that the separatists should be encouraged not to block talks and Russia must use its influence on the rebels to this end, according to an e-mailed statement from Steffen Seibert, a German government spokesman.
Five soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the past 24 hours, Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told reporters in Kiev yesterday. Rebel forces attacked Ukrainian troops 104 times in that period, he said.
Separatists attacked government troops in Debaltseve, a strategic transport hub, with artillery and Grad multiple- rocket-launch systems, Ukrainian military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin said by video link at the same briefing. Rebels shelled residential areas in the villages of Pisky and Vodyane twice, he said.
Eleven civilians died and 42 were injured in shelling by Ukrainian forces in the past day in the self-declared Donetsk republic, DAN reported yesterday, citing rebel spokesman Eduard Basurin.
A “maximum effort is being invested on the ground to ensure a cease-fire, withdrawal of heavy artillery, respect for the established demarcation line,” Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s foreign minister and OSCE chairman-in-office, told reporters in Belgrade on Sunday.
The U.S. and the European Union have threatened to expand sanctions against Russia for what they say is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support of the rebels, adding to restrictions imposed since the March annexation of Crimea and the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Donetsk in July. Daryna Krasnolutska and Kateryna Choursina, Bloomberg