DONETSK - Pro-Russian rebels defiantly announced Tuesday they will stage their own elections in just six weeks, raising the stakes in a standoff with Kiev despite both sides moving to end five months of deadly fighting.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics said they would hold simultaneous votes on November 2 to chose their leaders and “Supreme Soviets” or parliaments.
The surprise announcements are a slap in the face for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who only a week ago offered the separatist regions limited self-rule in a major concession to try to forge peace. Just hours earlier, insurgent leaders said they were withdrawing their big guns from the frontline under a peace plan forged with Kiev aimed at ending a conflict that has killed around 3,000 people since April.
AFP journalists said they saw tanks moving back from an area near Donetsk - the main rebel stronghold - although fighting was reported around the city’s airport in the morning.
“We have withdrawn artillery but only in those areas where the Ukrainian regular units have done the same,” Donetsk “prime minister” Alexander Zakharchenko told the Interfax news agency. “Where Ukraine hasn’t withdrawn artillery, we haven’t done so.”
Ukraine had said Monday it was starting a pullback under the terms of the deal signed in Minsk on Saturday that calls for both sides to withdraw from the frontline and establish a 30-kilometre (20-mile) wide demilitarised zone.
Hopes for an end to violence that has devastated many towns across Ukraine’s rustbelt had been kindled by an initial European-brokered truce signed by Moscow as well as Kiev and the rebels on September 5.  Ukrainian lawmakers then adopted last Tuesday legislation proposed by Poroshenko offering the rebels broader autonomy for three years and local elections on December 7.
Poroshenko said the “special status” law was the only way out of a conflict that has threatened Ukraine’s very survival in the face of what Kiev views as Russia’s expansionist threat after its annexation of Crimea in March.
But the Minsk deal had put on the back burner all issues concerning claims by the separatist regions for full independence from their foes in Kiev.
The separatists launched their insurrection in April, seizing towns and cities across the east and holding disputed independence referendums in May for Donetsk and Lugansk.
The level of violence appeared to have subsided overall since Saturday, although sporadic shelling and exchanges of fire have been reported almost daily since the initial September 5 truce.
AFP journalists said Donetsk airport, a key battleground, was hit by heavy artillery on Tuesday morning, sending flames and large clouds of black smoke shooting into the sky.
Donetsk city hall said a civilian was killed overnight, bringing to 40 the number of Ukrainian troops and civilians killed since September 5.
“Not everything’s clear with the ceasefire,” Zakharchenko said. “Firing from the Ukrainian side is still going on as before. I would call this a slow-moving military operation.”
Poroshenko agreed to the peace plan after several rounds of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is blamed by Kiev and the West for fomenting the rebellion by sending in elite troops and heavy weapons.
Kiev signed up to the deal after the rebels - apparently with Russian military backing - swept across the southeast towards the Azov Sea, delivering a series of battlefield defeats to government.
NATO says Russia still has troops in Ukraine, although Moscow denies ever sending forces across the border.
The self-rule law has been derided both by nationalist politicians who accuse Poroshenko of conceding defeat to the Kremlin, and by the rebels who feel they are no longer bound to Kiev.
About seven million people live in Donetsk and Lugansk and the coal and steel region accounts for about a quarter of national exports. But the separatists do not hold sway over the entire area.
The rebel-held zones stretch about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from Lugansk south to the Sea of Azov and around 160 kilometres from Donetsk eastwards to the Russian border, according to AFP calculations based on Ukrainian military maps.
Meanwhile, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger on Tuesday urged Russia not to use gas as a weapon in its standoff with the West over Ukraine.
Oettinger, on a visit to Kiev, said he hoped to reach an “interim solution” with Russia over its June decision to halt gas supplies to Ukraine when the three sides hold talks in Berlin on Friday.