Outgoing heavy-caliber fire boomed incessantly, shaking the ground and rattling windows around the besieged town. Residents of Debaltseve, seemingly inured to the racket, listened impassively as they mustered at the town hall on Saturday to be evacuated with as many belongings as they could carry.
The government-held town has been without power, water and gas for at least 10 days, prompting many to flee from an intense artillery duel between government and Russian-backed separatist forces. Almost every one of the largely deserted streets in the center showed signs of having been struck by projectiles.
A month of relative quiet in eastern Ukraine was shattered in early January by full-blown fighting as the separatists attempted to claw back additional territory from government hands. Rebel leaders accused Ukraine of mobilizing its forces in advance of an imminent offensive.
Ukraine’s emergency services said Saturday that almost a thousand residents have been evacuated in the past three days from Debaltseve. But the number of crammed civilian vehicles seen speeding out of the town’s rutted, icy roads over the past few days suggests official figures may be on the conservative side.
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Rebel representatives arrived in Minsk, Belarus, on Friday but left shortly thereafter because of what they said was the failure of Kiev’s negotiators to turn up. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebiynis reiterated his government’s consistent line, which is that Ukraine will send its envoy to talks only if the rebel leaders are there.
By early Saturday afternoon, representatives for the rebels, Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had all met in Minsk for talks, but no details were immediately available.
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Associated Press journalists Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, Ukraine, and Sergei Grits in Minsk, Belarus, contributed to this report.
