Ukraine’s Military Drive in East Enters Neutral Gear, as Pact on Crisis Is Tested

By ANDREW ROTH and NEIL MacFARQUHARAPRIL 23, 2014

The New York Times

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine — The promised Ukrainian military effort to reassert control over the restive eastern part of the country barely registered on Wednesday, but the Geneva agreement to defuse the crisis in the country frayed even further as the United States and Russia exchanged warnings and accusations of meddling in the region.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry in Kiev said that it had flushed out armed separatists in Sviatogorsk — a town near Slovyansk, a stronghold of pro-Russian militants in the east — and that no one was injured in the operation. But a Ukrainian military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the presence of the militants in the city had been minimal. “You cannot say that there had been a powerful outburst of separatism there,” he said.

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At a Ukrainian military base near Kramatorsk, about a 20-minute drive from Slovyansk, there was no sign on Wednesday that the government troops there were taking any action. The road leading to the main gate of the base was blocked by several rows of barricades constructed from tires, barbed wire and felled trees, with a small checkpoint flying a separatist flag.

At the gate, a Ukrainian soldier who identified himself only as Maksim said that there were no plans to move against the anti-Kiev protesters and armed militants at the checkpoint, or at the government buildings that they have seized in about a dozen cities in the region.

“They are peaceful people,” he said.

Even so, Vyachislav Ponomaryov, the self-proclaimed mayor of Slovyansk, told reporters at a news conference here that he expected the Ukrainian military to attack the city Wednesday night. Mr. Ponomaryov claimed that there were more than 12,500 soldiers within striking distance, and that his men were shoring up their defenses in the city.

Mr. Ponomaryov was asked about the killing of a politician from the region, Volodymyr Rybak, whose body was found in a river in Slovyansk. He denied involvement in the death, saying, “That my men had nothing to do with this is definite.”

A video clip posted last Thursday, the day Mr. Rybak disappeared, appeared to show him being accosted by pro-Russian militia members in the city of Gorlovka. The Ukrainian Security Service said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr. Ponomaryov had been instructed by a Russian intelligence agent to dispose of Mr. Rybak’s body.

But at a news conference in Donetsk, the regional capital, Mr. Rybak’s widow, Elena, declined to blame anyone for his death, saying she would await the results of a police investigation. She said her husband’s deeply held beliefs probably led to his death. “His mentality was that he would never sow betrayal, and that the most important thing is loyalty,” she said. “So he went to ends that perhaps society was not ready for.”

Mr. Ponomaryov said that local militia members were holding 10 people in a government building in Slovyansk. Among them are the city’s elected mayor and Simon Ostrovsky, an American journalist from Vice News. Mr. Ponomaryov said that Mr. Ostrovsky, whom he accused of reporting biased information, was healthy and being fed, though he offered no evidence.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, spoke bluntly about Ukraine in an interview on Wednesday with the Kremlin’s satellite news network, Russia Today, warning that events in eastern Ukraine could prompt a military response and again accusing the United States of manipulating events there.

“There is no reason not to believe that the Americans are running the show,” Mr. Lavrov said. He pointed out that the call by leaders in Kiev for a military effort against the pro-Russian militants in the east came just after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s visit to Kiev this week, and that a similar call followed an earlier visit by John O. Brennan, the director of the C.I.A.

Mr. Lavrov denied that the Russian troops massed near Ukraine had crossed the border, but he said they would act if any Russians in Ukraine were harmed. “Russian citizens being attacked is an attack against the Russian Federation,” he said in the interview.

He also compared events in Ukraine to the circumstances that led to the war in Georgia in 2008, when Russia helped South Ossetia and Abkhazia — two regions filled with its supporters — to break away from Georgian control.

“If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in accordance with international law,” Mr. Lavrov said.

The United States has said that the joint statement agreed to in Geneva on Thursday, which was also signed by Ukraine and the European Union, required Russia to use its influence with pro-Russian separatists and persuade them to give up the buildings they have seized. But separatist leaders have rejected the agreement, saying that they were not party to it and that no one could speak for them. The separatists have said that the interim government in Kiev must resign before they will stand down.

To reassure Eastern European countries that are alarmed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its pressure on Ukraine, a detachment of about 150 American Army paratroopers arrived in northwestern Poland on Wednesday to take part in joint training exercises, Western officials said.

The conflict in Ukraine has been seen as a test of NATO’s resolve to maintain the post-Cold War order, including borders that were set after the fall of Communism and that eastern European countries regard as sacrosanct.

American officials said that the paratroopers came from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based in Vicenza, Italy, and that more troops would be sent in the next few days for similar exercises in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They said that the exercises would last about a month.

Andrew Roth reported from Slovyansk, and Neil MacFarquhar from Moscow. Noah Sneider contributed reporting from Donetsk, Ukraine; Dan Bilefsky from Paris; and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.