Ukrainian air force strikes pro-Russia rebels at Donetsk airport

Pro-Russian insurgents arrive near Donetsk's Sergei Prokofiev International Airport on Monday to reinforce separatist gunmen under fire by the Ukrainian air force. (Vadim Ghirda / Associated Press)

DONETSK: Ukraine scrambled fighter jets and combat helicopters to strike rebel gunmen who seized control of the main airport in the eastern city of Donetsk on Monday, triggering heavy gunbattles.

Thick black smoke was seen rising from the airport complex as the sound of explosions and heavy machinegun fire rang out, AFP correspondents at the scene said.

The fierce confrontation erupted after Ukrainian oligarch Petro Poroshenko, who claimed victory in Sunday's crucial presidential election, vowed to press on with an offensive against pro-Russian separatists waging a bloody insurgency across the east.

Scores of gunmen had stormed the airport early Monday in an apparent show of defiance after the election, which was rejected as illegitimate by the rebels who thwarted polling in large parts of the east under their control.

"After the expiry at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) of an ultimatum (for the insurgents to leave) we launched an anti-terror operation," military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashyvskiy told AFP.

Another spokesman, Vladyslav Seleznyov, said on Facebook that Ukrainian forces were backed by Mi-8 helicopters filled with paratroopers, and fighter jets.

"First, SU-25 fighters fired a warning shot aimed at forcing the terrorists to fulfil our demands. Some of the gunmen began to panic," he said. "Then a MiG-29 delivered an air strike near areas where the terrorists had gathered."

All flights were halted out of the airport from early morning after the insurgents raided the strategic transport hub, which underwent a massive refurbishment for the 2012 European football championship.

It had been evacuated and sealed off after gunmen claiming to be from the self-declared "Donetsk People's Republic" showed up overnight demanding that Ukrainian troops guarding the perimeter be withdrawn.

The last scheduled plane allowed to leave was the 7:00 am (0400 GMT) flight to Kiev.

"We do not know when we will be up working again," airport spokesman Dmytro Kosinov said.

An AFP journalist saw three military trucks with scores of well-armed men in camouflage, some wearing pro-Russian ribbons and others with Cossack hats and beards, driving towards the airport through a traffic police checkpoint a few hundred metres from the main terminal.

"It was quiet and then suddenly two explosions and then another two -- they seemed like they had been fired from a plane," said Maksim Bakhal, a worker at a cemetery on the edge of the airport.

"Then three helicopters flew over and they were shooting at them with machine guns," he said. "Then there was shooting from all sides -- with heavier weapons and cannons."

Separatists in the heavily-Russified eastern rust belt of the ex-Soviet nation launched an insurgency against Kiev's rule in early April and have seized about a dozen cities and towns in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions neighbouring #Russia.

Poroshenko, who is expected to be formally declared president after results showed him with a resounding win on Sunday, said there would be no let-up in efforts to crush the rebels.

"I support continuing the operation, but I demand that its format be changed," he said. "It must be shorter in terms of time-frames and more efficient."

He accused the militants of wanting to turn the region of nearly seven million people "into Somalia" and refused to open dialogue with the rebels until they laid down their arms.

Uraine’s presumed president-elect, Petro Poroshenko, vowed Monday to bring an end to the armed confrontation with pro-Russia separatists in the east and Russia’s top diplomat responded with assurances that the Kremlin is “ready for dialogue.”

But hours later Ukrainian air force troops strafed the armed militants’ positions at the international airport in Donetsk in an attempt to halt their efforts to further disrupt transport and industry in the sprawling industrial Donbass area.

The attack from the air was likely to enrage Moscow, which had appealed for an immediate end to the Kiev government’s “anti-terrorist operation” that has sought, with limited success, to recover territory seized by the pro-Russia rebels over the past two months.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had responded positively to the apparent election of #Poroshenko to lead #Ukraine after a turbulent six months that has witnessed a grass-roots revolution, the ousting of former Kremlin-allied President Viktor Yanukovich, Russian military occupation and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea territory and the separatists’ seizure of a dozen towns and cities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“We are ready for dialogue with Kiev representatives, with Petro Poroshenko,” Lavrov said after the billionaire candidate was projected to win the Ukrainian presidency with 56% of the votes cast Sunday.

But Lavrov warned the next leadership that fighting in the east had to cease if the two former Soviet republics were to make any progress in mending the damage to their relations inflicted by the Russian territorial aggression and the Ukrainian military’s feeble efforts to reassert Kiev’s control.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the so-called anti-terrorist operation did not end,” Lavrov said of the Kremlin’s insistence that Sunday’s election couldn’t be considered valid if violence was being waged against the Russian-speaking eastern regions. Failure to halt the operations now that Kiev has new leadership in sight “will be a huge mistake,” Lavrov warned.

Pro-Russia gunmen, who last week blocked rail transport through the regions they occupy, took over the main terminal of Sergei Prokofiev International Airport overnight, Ukrainian military officials said Monday. The government deployed helicopters to bring paratroops to retake control of the airport and sent truckloads of soldiers to secure the facility and its vicinity.

The modern glass-and-steel terminal was built just four years ago ahead of Donetsk’s 2012 hosting of a European soccer championship. Donetsk, a city of a million residents, is home to the Shakhtar soccer club, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and the biggest employer in the mining and manufacturing area.

“Helicopters of the ATO [anti-terrorist operation] forces destroyed an anti-aircraft gun that terrorists mounted in the Donetsk airport," spokesman Vladyslav Selezniov was quoted as saying by Kiev’s Ukrinform news agency.

Selezniov also denied what he said were reports of a Ukrainian helicopter having been shot down by the rebels.

The BBC carried video showing masked separatists arriving at the airport perimeter to reinforce the militants under fire. The airport was closed to commercial traffic on Sunday when the gunmen first took over the terminal. Other parts of the airport apparently remained under government control.

Poroshenko has said he will not negotiate with illegal armed groups but raised hopes for easing tensions in the east with his swift overture to Moscow. At a Monday morning news conference, he called for talks with Kremlin leaders, conceding that making peace with the militants in Donbass “will be impossible without the participation of Russia.”

Poroshenko said his first official trip as president would be to the Donbass region, the broad industrial belt extending from the Don River basin, and that he hoped to visit Moscow in the first half of June.

Assuming Poroshenko’s first-round victory projection from exit polls is validated by the final vote count, the presidential inauguration is tentatively set for June 15. Until then, interim President Oleksandr Turchynov remains head of state although Russian officials have dismissed him as illegitimate and “coup-appointed.”
The LA Time