Ukraine’s fragile ceasefire came under intense pressure Thursday as pro-Russian rebels launched a fresh assault on the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk and Russian prosecutors said they were preparing war crimes charges against the country’s defense minister and other officials.
The renewed fighting came as NATO’s new leader repeated the alliance’s concern that Moscow was using the month-old truce as a cover to reinforce its position in Ukraine, and a key Russian official hinted that Moldova could be the next target.
In Donetsk, four people were killed when shells hit a school and six others at a bus station. Each side blamed the other for the attack.
Russian prosecutors, meanwhile, said Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Heletey and several other military leaders would be placed on international want lists after charges of murder, using prohibited means of warfare and genocide are filed, according to the official RIA-Novosti news agency. Ukraine — backed by NATO and many other countries — has accused Russia of violating international law by seizing Crimea and invading its territory, and Moscow has sought to claim the moral high ground with accusations of atrocities against ethnic Russians by Ukrainian forces.
Concerns about Russia’s actions were underlined by former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in his first news conference after taking over Wednesday as NATO’s secretary general.
“What we need to see is a change in Russia’s actions, meaning that we have to see changes that demonstrate compliance with international law. And we have to see changes in the actions of Russia which demonstrates that they are respecting their international obligations and responsibilities,” he told reporters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reminded Russian President Vladimir Putin of Moscow’s “responsibility” to rein in the rebels, AFP reported.
But Russian officials kept up the rhetorical pressure, with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin suggesting Wednesday that Moldova could be Moscow’s next target. Tweeting a Russian-language account by the official ITAR-TASS news agency of a speech he gave at the opening of a museum exhibit dedicated to the Russian-occupied breakaway Moldovan province of Transnistria, Rogozin said: “Russia won’t let the Ukrainian scenario repeat on the Transnistria’s borders.”
One of the major concerns of NATO and Ukrainian officials is that Russia is seeking to capture a land corridor along the Black Sea coast between its territory to the east of Ukraine’s borders and Transnistria, which lies to the west.
