Deadly gun attack shakes Easter truce

Source:Reuters Published: 2014-4-21 1:38:01



People inspect a burned-out vehicle in front of a pro-Russian blockade near Slaviansk, Ukraine, on Sunday. According to media reports, Russian activists reportedly died in an exchange of gunfire on Saturday night. Protesters continue to maintain camps in four cities, demanding a new federal system with broad autonomy for eastern regions. Photo: AFP



 At least two people were killed in a gunfight early on Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict.

After the deaths, Russia questioned whether Ukraine's Western-backed government was complying with the agreement, brokered last week in Geneva, to end a crisis that has made Russia's ties with the West more fraught than at any time since the Cold War.

The separatists said gunmen from Ukraine's Right Sector nationalist group had attacked them. The Right Sector denied any role, saying Russian special forces were behind the clash.

Failure of the Geneva agreement could bring more bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, but may also prompt the United States early next week to impose tougher sanctions on the Kremlin - with far-reaching potential consequences for many economies and for importers of Russian energy.

The deal signed in Geneva last week by the European Union, Russia, Ukraine and the United States agreed that illegal armed groups would go home.

So far, the pro-Russian militants have shown no signs of budging, though there was some hope of progress after Kiev said it would not move against the separatists over Easter, and international mediators headed to eastern Ukraine to try to persuade them to disarm.

But the shootings near Slaviansk - already a flash point for tensions between Ukraine's rival camps - are likely to make that task even harder, hardening the view of pro-Russian sections of society that they cannot trust Kiev.

"The Easter truce has been violated," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "This provocation ... testifies to the lack of will on the part of the Kiev authorities to rein in and disarm nationalists and extremists."

Separatist militiamen near the eastern Ukrainian city of Slaviansk told Reuters a convoy of four vehicles had approached their checkpoint at around 2 am and opened fire.

"We had three dead, four wounded," one of the separatist fighters, called Vladimir, told Reuters at the checkpoint, where there were two burned-out jeeps.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said he saw the bodies of two people, one with what appeared to be gunshot wounds to the head and face, loaded into the back of a truck.

In Kiev, the Interior Ministry said one person had been killed and three injured in an armed clash. It said police were trying to establish more details of what happened.

Reuters

Posted in: Europe

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