Ukraine troops withdrawing from key town of Debaltseve

By The Guardian

Ukrainian troops are retreating from the hotspot of Debaltseve after intense fighting in what marks an important strategic victory for pro-Russia forces.

“All units are being withdrawn. The order was given at six this morning by army command,” said Yevgeny Shevchenko, aide to the commander of the Donbass Battalion, on the road between Debaltseve and Artemivsk. He said 6,000 soldiers had been in the city.

Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said more than 80% of his troops in the town had left.

The size of Debaltseve – it was home to about 25,000 people before the war emptied its streets – belies its strategic importance to rebels as the site of a rail junction connecting their strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Dozens of vehicles – tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, troop transport trucks, ambulances and vans – were streaming down the highway leading from Debaltseve to the main Ukrainian lines near Artemivsk on Wednesday.

“Debaltseve is no longer ours,” said a fighter named Ilya, who said he had just come from there.

Kiev’s forces appeared to be laying down suppressing fire towards the town to help their comrades retreat. Outside Artemivsk, outgoing artillery was heard and a multiple rocket launcher seen firing off a volley towards Debaltseve.

If Russia and the rebels continue to breach the ceasefire or otherwise overplay their hand, they are likely to face a much tougher US response

The Ukrainian forces were taking heavy casualties escaping the city, which has been virtually surrounded by rebel forces for at least a week.

Makeshift ambulances were delivering wounded men to the hospital. The medical chief for the region, said at least 90 wounded had been taken out.

One medic said he had taken 20 dead to the morgue, most of whom had been killed making their way out of the town. Some had been killed on top of troop carriers as they drove, he said.

Rebels have been heavily shelling any vehicles on a 10-mile stretch of the “road of life” connecting Debaltseve and Artemivsk. Shevchenko, the commander’s aide, said Ukrainian tanks had taken high ground near a smaller road leading to Artemivsk through Mironovka to cover the escape. But that road was also under fire, he said.

“We got out through the fields,” said a soldier with the call sign Sailor. Most of the city is captured and government forces were “breaking out little by little”, he said.

Another soldier, named Yury, said he had been in a convoy bringing out about a dozen wounded. They had been under heavy mortar and machine gun fire and had fallen into rebel ambushes twice along the way, he said.

Soldiers from the 108th brigade of the national guard said they had been picking up men escaping from Debaltseve by foot. When asked about the intensity of the enemy fire along the escape route, they pointed to a rear wheel of their armoured fighting vehicle, which had been shredded by a mortar round, they said.

“Guys are running out on foot through the fields because [rebels] are shelling vehicles. They give us the coordinates and we pick them up,” a soldier with the vehicle, named Alexander Ivanov, said. He said the unit had picked up hundreds of men from Debaltseve on Wednesday.

Several dozen men from the 108th, who had been stationed on the outskirts of Debaltseve, arrived in Artemivsk and, on command, fired their Kalashnikov assault rifles into the air until their magazines were empty. It was a salute, one soldier said, “for a successful return”.

Trucks full of men were also heading towards the front. One soldier said they were going to reinforce their positions on the main frontline.

The defeat was a black eye for Poroshenko’s government, which has long struck a defiant pose in the face of pro-Russia aggression in the east. Some in the army were angry over his repeated denials that Debaltseve was surrounded, despite evidence on the ground that almost no supplies or ambulances had been able to get through since 8 February.

Poroshenko tried to argue that the retreat had “put to shame Russia, which on Tuesday was still demanding Ukrainian soldiers put down their weapons”. But Semyon Semyonchenko, a prominent MP and commander of the Donbass battalion, blamed the Kiev leadership for the defeat and said in a post on Facebook that he would call for the resignation of Viktor Muzhenko, the army commander, at the next session of the security and defence committee.

“What hindered us in Debaltseve? We had enough men and material,” Semyonchenko wrote. “The problem was with the leadership and coordination of actions … What’s going on now is the result of incompetent management of our troops, even though they’re trying to cover this up with a propaganda storm.”

David Cameron said on Wednesday that Europe could not turn a blind eye to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, warning Vladimir Putin that he could face sanctions that would have financial and economic consequences for his country for many years to come.

The British prime minister said there was a temptation for every European country to leave the responsibility for dealing with what is happening in Ukraine to someone else. “That would be a terrible mistake, so Britain has been leading the argument that Russia’s behaviour has been completely unacceptable, and consequences have to follow in terms of sanctions,” he said.