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Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko offers rebels more autonomy(KIEV, Ukraine)
Ukraine’s president says he will grant more autonomy to separatists in the east to keep the country together.
Petro Poroshenko said the current ceasefire had changed the situation “drastically”, despite reports that rebels had captured another town.
One rebel leader in Donetsk dismissed his comments and said they intended to break away and become independent.
The ceasefire came into effect last Friday in a deal in Belarus backed by Ukraine, the separatists and Russia.
More than 2,600 people have been killed since fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government forces erupted in April.
Mr Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Tuesday and said they were satisfied with how it was holding, a Kremlin official said on Wednesday.
Speaking during a televised meeting with his government, Ukraine’s leader said that implementing the truce had been “difficult” in the midst of a “war for the independence and integrity” of the country.
But he added: “The situation has radically changed at the front. Before the ceasefire was announced, Ukraine was losing the lives of dozens of its heroes on a daily basis.”
He said he was seeking a permanent solution to the conflict and had submitted a bill to parliament that would give separatists more autonomy but with “a status that keeps these regions in Ukraine”.
“Ukraine will not make any concessions on issues of its territorial integrity,” he insisted.
But Andrei Purgin, the deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, responded to Mr Poroshenko’s comments by saying that rebels “are not considering remaining part of Ukraine”.
Earlier, rebels said they had captured the town of Komsomolske in the Donestk region and posted a video online showing their flag being raised over the town council building.
That was disputed by Ukrainian officials. However, Ukrainian TV said three border guards had been killed in an explosion in neighbouring Luhansk region.
Separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared their independence in April following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula.
Before the current truce came into place, rebels had made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said it is discussing the possibility of sending drones to monitor the truce.
Meanwhile, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Ukraine bore “full responsibility” for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on 17 July.
He was speaking after Dutch investigators released a preliminary report on Tuesday, saying that the plane, which crashed in rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, was hit by by “objects” that “pierced the plane at high velocity”.
All 298 people on board died when the plane came down. Ukraine says it was shot down by rebels using Russian hardware.
But Mr Shoigu told Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein that Ukraine “bears full, total responsibility” for the crash because it happened in Ukrainian airspace.
(BBC)
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