Ukrainian border guard camp attacked

(Vatican Radio) American  President Barack Obama was preparing to visit Europe for talks on Ukraine, where officials said Monday at least five pro-Russia rebels were killed after they and hundreds of other armed forces attacked a Ukrainian border guards' camp. 

 

The latest fighting came just hours before was to start his European tour in Poland where he was to meet with Ukraine's chocolate-tycoon turned-president elect Petro Poroshenko. 

 

Officials said Obama's tour is aimed at reassuring allies that are nervous about Russian aggression in the former Soviet republic. 

 

In the latest clashes on Monday, pro-Russia separatists were reportedly killed when they tried to overrun the Luhansk border guards' base in eastern Ukraine. 

 

Serhiy Astakhov, the spokesman for the border guard service, said a preliminary assessment indicated that five rebels were killed and eight injured in the attack on the camp in Luhansk, a major city near the Russian border. He added that seven servicemen were injured, three seriously.

 

The initial attack by about 100 insurgents was met by firing from the border guards, and the number of attackers reportedly swelled to around 400 a few hours later. 

 

An Associated Press reporter said he saw at least one dead rebel soldier about a kilometer away from the base. Fellow fighters reportedly approached and broke into tears as they viewed the body.

 

Pro-Russia rebels have waged increasingly aggressive attacks on government-held checkpoints and garrisons in an attempt to seize weapons and ammunition from Ukrainian forces. 

 

Poroshenko, who is expected to be sworn in as president on Saturday, has told reporters that his priority will be to restore stability in Ukraine's troubled east. 

He said, "The first steps which all our team will take from the start of our presidency will be focused on ending the war, chaos, and disorder and bringing peace to Ukrainian land, to a united and integral Ukraine.”

 

The White House agrees, saying Obama has offered America's full support to unify Ukraine following weeks of fighting with pro-Russian separatists

After talks with Pororshenko, President Obama is to visit Belgium and France for talks that will also include Ukraine against a backdrop of what international observers have called successful national elections.  

The White House says Obama will not hold a formal bilateral meeting with Putin, though the two leaders are expected to have some contact including in Normandy, France, where Russian President Vladmir Putin is scheduled to join U.S. and European leaders Friday for events marking the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion there. 

 

Putin was also to hold one-on-one talks with French President Francois Hollande, his first meeting with a Western leader since the Ukraine crisis began. 

Ahead of those talks, Washington said there were signs Russia is moving most of its troops off its shared border with Ukraine.  

 

Yet Moscow remains angry about what it views as Ukrainian government aggression and critics say Russia now using natural gas as another weapon to force its neighbor into submission

Russia's state gas company Gazprom said Monday it was giving financially troubled Ukraine another week before it starts demanding prepayment for natural gas, without which it could cut off supplies.

 

Amid the dispute and violence continuing to rage in eastern Ukrainian cities, deep uncertainty remains whether Ukraine's new president-elect can stabilize his volatile nation. Listen to this report by Stefan Bos