The result of these renewed attacks on separatists’ targets was a huge victory for Ukraine over the pro-Russian fighters. Just a few days after the termination of the ceasefire the Ukrainian military reported they had cleared as many as seventeen villages that had initially been held by separatists in the eastern regions. According to the Ukrainian claims, 150 pro-Russian militants lost their lives during aerial and artillery bombardments of the region, while only two Ukrainian soldiers were reported killed and four as wounded. A day later the Ukrainian troops freed the town of Sloviansk, once the symbol of the rebels’ resistance. Igor Girkin ordered his separatist troops to pull back to Donetsk after he recorded an emotional appeal to President Putin, saying that he feared that ‘Russia has abandoned us’.
A column of three tanks, three ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launchers and several armoured vehicles were spotted near the border with Russia in the region of Luhansk, in an area controlled by separatist troops. While there was no immediate indication that the Kremlin was enabling or supporting combatants coming from Russia into Ukraine, the pro-Russian separatists sometimes admitted that Russian citizens were present in their ranks (although others claimed these men were in fact Chechen mercenaries) and did not deny that they received military and financial support from Russian sources. It was hard, however, to assess how many Russians citizens or soldiers had actually joined the separatists, and the amount and type of military hardware they had received from across the border.
With Russia remaining reluctant to provide patronage publicly, the separatists became increasingly frustrated with Moscow and loudly complained that Russia was not providing enough men and materials, even after their leaders had repeatedly appealed to President Putin to intervene directly. But many leaders in Western Europe, the US and Ukraine believed that Moscow was highly involved in what was happening in Ukraine, and that the porous Ukraine border with Russia continually leaked men and weaponry, thus making the aid provided to the pro-Russian fighters less obvious to the outside world.
After being pushed out of Sloviansk and forced out of a string of eastern Ukrainian towns, Girkin and hundreds of separatists pulled back to Donetsk and fortified the city for a street war. Girkin believed that Donetsk would be much easier to defend than the smaller Sloviansk and, due to its importance to the Ukrainian economy, Ukraine’s military might be reluctant to totally destroy the city in an attack.
The city up to now had been under the command of separatist military leader Aleksander Khodakovsky, who openly criticised Girkin for abandoning the people of Sloviansk. Khodakovsky promised the people of Donetsk that, if Girkin ordered his troops to flee from the city, he would not follow. He and his troops would never abandon the city and its people.
By coming to Donetsk, Girkin altered the shape of the conflict, because now all the firepower of the separatists was concentrated in just one place. Khodakovsky, who had had military control of the city, was now confronted by Girkin, who claimed command. Khodakovsky openly refused to subordinate to his superior, which made relations between the two edgy and tense. With neither party wanting to have on their hands an internal conflict as well as a war with Ukraine, both Girkin and Khodakovsky backed down for the time being, managing to avoid one another as much as possible.
As the separatists took up positions in Donetsk, three bridges were blown up on roads leading into the city. Although it was unclear who was behind the explosions, the Ukrainian media reported it had been done by the rebels in an attempt to cut off Ukraine’s military advance. In the city many barricades were put up and even an old tank was snatched from a Donetsk museum to play its part in the coming conflict. Many residents, sensing the battle would be aggressive and fierce, fled. With armed troops roaming the city and the few remaining residents keeping indoors, the once lively Donetsk had now taken on the appearance of an eerie ghost town.
Clashes between Ukrainian troops and the separatists were reported as separatists tried to seize Donetsk airport on 10 July. A plume of smoke could be seen rising near the airport control tower and the loud sound of mortar was heard from within the city borders. A month earlier the separatists had taken the airport, but Ukrainian forces had managed to recapture it shortly afterwards. Throughout the months there had been a continually fierce fight to occupy the airport. Every fighter knew that it was a stronghold and that those who had control of the airport had a much better chance of gaining control of the city.
Positioned close to Donetsk with a good road transport network towards the city, and situated on high, flat ground, the airport offered a natural bastion that overlooked the city and afforded a platform for the deployment of armour and artillery that was within striking range of the city centre itself. This convenient vantage point allowed the Ukrainian forces to target separatist positions in Donetsk with artillery fire. The separatists, determined to capture the stronghold once more, fired endless rounds of mortar at the airfield. Their attack in the end failed and they were forced to pull back further within the city’s borders.
As the fighting in the region intensified, economic sanctions against people and companies involved in the conflict were implemented by the EU and US. Those who were suspected of aiding the rebels were now no longer allowed to travel to Europe and their assets were frozen. Most separatist fighters shrugged at the measures: they weren’t planning on travelling to Europe and they did not have bank accounts.
On 11 July a volley of rockets hit the village of Zelenopillya, killing thirty Ukrainian soldiers and injuring ninety-three of them. Poroshenko’s answer came the next day when he sent war planes to bombard separatist positions along the front, causing huge losses to the rebels. The pro-Russian fighters were well aware that they would need better air-defence systems to defend themselves against the ongoing air strikes.
Now that the separatists were being pushed further back by the Ukrainian army, they became eager to display to the people who supported them that they were in no way defeated. Launching a rocket, the rebels managed to bring down yet another military transport aircraft, an Antonov An-26. It came down in an open field near the town of Izvaryne, close to the Russian border. Both pilots were fatally injured, but the six passengers managed to bail out just before the plane hit the ground. Jumping to safety, all but one escaped local separatist militia.
The Antonov had been flying at an altitude of some 21,000 feet. Its loss meant a crucial change in the way the war would need to be waged by the Ukrainian forces, because it was the first aircraft to be shot down while flying at an altitude out of reach of man-portable air-defence systems. Up to now, separatist militia were known to have portable surface-to-air missiles that worked up to about 3500 metres or some 10,000 feet.
Because Ukrainian officials did not believe that the separatists were in possession of the sophisticated military launcher needed to be able to shoot a plane out of the sky at an altitude of 21,000 feet, initially the theory was that either the missile had been launched from Russian territory or the plane had flown lower than the estimated 21,000 feet and was downed by a surface-to-air launcher. Officials also thought that the aircraft could have been attacked by a Russian fighter jet.