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New unrest roils eastern Ukraine; 12 killed

Activists dismantle Ukraine's biggest monument to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin at a pro-Ukraine rally in Kharkiv on Sunday.
(Igor Chekachkov / Associated Press)
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At least 12 people died in renewed fighting near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the most serious violations to date of a Sept. 5 cease-fire agreement, Ukrainian and pro-Russia separatist sources said Monday.

Anti-communist unrest in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, also signaled an ominous change in the volatile atmosphere in eastern Ukraine. Demonstrators in and around Kharkiv pulled down two statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin over the weekend, in an action denounced by Russia as vandalism and disrespect for regional history but defended by some Ukrainian leaders.

Nine Ukrainian military personnel were killed in fighting Sunday and Monday around the Donetsk international airport, although the modern facility, which has been closed since May, remained in government hands, said Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.

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A report on the Donetsk city administration website, maintained by pro-Russia separatists, said three civilians died in overnight shelling of suburban areas. Donetsk, the industrial hub of the manufacturing valley along the Don river known as Donbas, was home to a million residents before fighting flared in the spring. Hundreds of thousands of residents from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions have fled their homes for safer territory in Russia or western Ukraine, and more than 3,000 have died in the 6-month-old conflict.

Kharkiv, a city of 1.4 million that neighbors the embattled regions but had been relatively peaceful during the government’s fight against Russian-backed separatists, was rocked by demonstrations in recent days, one of which culminated in the toppling Sunday of the city’s main monument to Lenin. Another statue honoring Lenin was felled in Dergachi, in the Kharkiv region, Russian media reported.

Although it was the Soviet government that defined the borders of what is now independent Ukraine, Lenin is seen by Ukrainian nationalists as a symbol of Russian domination of their country. But numerous tributes to the first Soviet leader remain in prominent public places in eastern Ukraine, where a large Russian minority lives and the Russian language is widely used.

Kharkiv Mayor Gennady Kernes called the pulling down of the Lenin statue, part of a 66-foot-tall monument, in his city’s central square “a direct violation of the law” on public safety. Kernes, who was the target of an April assassination attempt, presumably for his refusal to join the separatist rebellion, vowed to see the statue restored and the perpetrators punished.

“I don’t think that now is the right time to wage war on historic monuments. I don’t think there’ll ever be a time for this. Kharkiv has always been a tolerant city,” Kernes told Russian media.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said the Lenin monument was dismantled on orders issued Saturday by Kharkiv Gov. Ihor Baluta.

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“Lenin? Let him fall … as long as nobody gets hurt,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page.

Ukrainian and Western officials have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of fomenting the separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine with virulent propaganda alleging systematic abuse of Russian speakers. The Kremlin leader, who denies involvement in the Ukraine crisis, is also accused of sending in arms, mercenaries and elite Russian forces to wrest territory from Kiev’s rule that would allow Moscow to send troops and supplies to Crimea. Russia annexed the strategic Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in March.

Russian, Ukrainian and separatist forces agreed during a Sept. 5 meeting in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, to cease fighting and embark on peace negotiations. The agreement has reduced violence in the region, but each side accuses the other of rearming and positioning new forces for an expected resumption of the conflict.

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