EUROPE

With Ukrainian Troops Trapped, a Cease-Fire Grows More Fragile

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Fighters of the Donetsk People’s Republic forces collected parts of a destroyed Ukrainian tank west of Debaltseve on Monday. Baz Ratner/Reuters
ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — The plight of as many as 8,000 Ukrainian troops trapped in the vicinity of Debaltseve, as well as the prospects for an alreadyfragile truce, look decidedly dimmer on Monday after a Russian television correspondent strolled down what was supposed to be a hotly contested road.
The video on the Russian channel Life News, if reliable, seemed to prove that the road, the only artery of support for the Ukrainian troops, was firmly in the hands of the separatists.
The status of this stretch of potholed asphalt has become a sticking point in the cease-fire and threatens to unravel the deal. The separatists say their control of the road means they have the Ukrainians surrounded. President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine has denied their claim, because conceding the point would force him either to negotiate for the release of the trapped soldiers or resume fighting to extricate them.
A dozen or so soldiers escaped on Sunday, and on Friday a small group reportedly managed to walk out through the fields. Otherwise, nobody has left the town since Thursday.

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Already battered and giving ground after the conflict flared up a month ago, and fighting against forces they and Western governments say include the Russians, Ukrainian soldiers had been trying at least to hold onto their supply line until the cease-fire took effect, at midnight Saturday. It seems increasingly evident that they failed, putting the agreement in doubt.
Previously, this section of road was known to be mined and within range of rebel artillery, though not occupied by rebel soldiers. The video, with a backdrop of blown-up tanks and dead Ukrainian soldiers, appeared to show Russian-backed militants on the road near Logvinovo, about five miles from Debaltseve.
Having apparently lost on the battlefield, Ukraine now will appeal for diplomatic pressure on Russia to prevail upon the separatists to open the road. But European leaders and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia were unable to solve the Debaltseve riddle during intense negotiations in Minsklast week, and it remains an open question whether they can now.
Elsewhere in eastern Ukraine there were scattered cease-fire violations on Monday, as the European Union on Monday froze the assets of an additional 19 individuals and nine entities after delaying the announcement during the Minsk negotiations.
Ilkka Kanerva, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, issued a statement welcoming the general success of the cease-fire but deploring “the illegal separatists’ false and counterproductive insistence that the deal does not apply to Debaltseve, a government-held town.”
The security group is playing a central role in monitoring the cease-fire and, as of midnight Monday, the withdrawal of heavy weapons. The group, to which the United States and the European powers, including Russia and Ukraine, belong, has formed the three-way channel with the Ukrainian forces and the pro-Russian separatists that is supposed to oversee and carry out the Minsk agreement.
Security in Debaltseve was so shaky Sunday and early Monday that the group’s monitors had not yet gained access, said Germany’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Sawsan Chebli. The State Department said Monday night that the cease-fire in Ukraine was in jeopardy because of the Russian-backed separatists, adding that it was monitoring reports that a new column of Russian equipment was moving toward Debaltseve.
Shelling continued through the day Monday at several locations in eastern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Army reported that five members of a volunteer battalion had been killed near Mariupol, a port city on the Azov Sea.
The cease-fire agreement also seemed to be breaking down on the second of its 13 points, which called for both sides to begin withdrawing heavy weapons by midnight Monday.
In Kiev, an army spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said Ukraine would not pull back its artillery, tanks and rocket launchers until the first point, the cease-fire itself, took hold. On the road to Debaltseve on Monday, Ukrainian rocket-launching trucks rumbled not away from the front lines, but toward them.
In turn, Denis Pushilin of the main rebel group, the Donetsk People’s Republic, said separatist forces would not unilaterally pull back heavy weapons.
For war-weary Ukraine, the crumbling truce comes as a heavy blow, and for none more than the relatives of the surrounded soldiers in Debaltseve.
Barring a diplomatic solution, “our military should break the cease-fire and fight back in to get the wounded out,” Alla G. Neschadym, whose son, a medic, was trapped in Debaltseve, said in an interview, her eyes red from exhaustion and worry. “That’s the only way. Otherwise, we let them die.”
Alison Smale contributed reporting from Berlin, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.