Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday vowed to crush the rebellion in the east of the country, as pro-Russian protesters claimed gains against government troops.
“We will end this terror,” Mr. Poroshenko told Bild .
“There is a real war being waged against our country.”
“I can tell you that the operation has at last really begun,” he said, adding that the aim was to detain rebel leaders and put them on trial.
At least 36 people were killed and 31 injured on Monday, when government forces attacked pro-Russian fighters at the airport of Donetsk.
The self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic claimed on its Twitter account on Wednesday that its fighters had regained control of the airport terminal and its surroundings.
In other developments, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that a “pro-Russian group” had captured four international observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
“Efforts to free them are ongoing,” ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis said in Kiev, according to local media reports.
The OSCE said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with four members of the civilian observer mission in the Donetsk region.
The Donetsk People’s Republic press office denied that it had anything to do with the mission’s disappearance and said it would launch a search for its members.
Also on Wednesday, leaders of the pro-Western protest movement in Kiev said that they will only remove the barricades in the centre of the Ukrainian capital when their conditions are met.
The activists want those responsible for the killing of some 100 protesters to be found and punished. They are also demanding wide-ranging government reforms.
