Ukraine rebels: We're moving weapons back
The main Russian-backed rebel organization in eastern Ukraine said it would begin moving heavy weaponry away from the front lines on Sunday, but the government said the group mounted a tank assault on a village near the Sea of Azov.
Violence also spread beyond the separatist regions to other Ukrainian cities on Sunday. In Kharkiv, a major industrial center, a bomb went off during a pro-government march. Three people were killed, including a police officer, and 15 more were wounded, a deputy mayor, Svetlana G. Ruban, said in a telephone interview.
Another bomb was found in a shopping bag on a street in Odessa, a port on the Black Sea. It was defused by the police.
Both bombs appeared to target ceremonies and parades commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the former pro-Russian government of Ukraine, which was driven out by months of protests on Independence Square in Kiev, the capital.
The current president, Petro O. Poroshenko, called the two incidents on Sunday terrorist acts. He spoke at a ceremony in Kiev where thousands of people paraded for the anniversary, including the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Germany and Georgia.
The Ukrainian authorities say they are struggling to rein in a pro-Moscow underground movement that is growing more active in Kharkiv, Odessa and other cities, mainly in the east, where the population is predominantly Russian speaking. Bombings and assassinations have been frequent.
In Kharkiv, bombs have gone off in a bar frequented by pro-Kiev activists and in a crowd outside a courthouse. Elsewhere, assailants have fired shots at volunteers collecting aid for the Ukrainian Army.
Markian Lubkivskyi, an aide to the director of Ukraines domestic intelligence service, the S.B.U., said on Sunday that four suspects were detained in connection with the bombing at the march in Kharkiv. He said they had received weapons and training in Belgorod, a town in Russia near the Ukrainian border.
The marchers in Kharkiv had gathered to walk from the Palace of Sport to Constitution Square, where a ceremony was planned to honor soldiers killed in the fighting with the rebels. The bomb, a fragmentation-type device, was thrown from a passing car.
Photographs posted online of the aftermath of the attack showed wounded people lying on the wet pavement while medical personnel scrambled to help, and a dead body covered with a Ukrainian flag a sad echo of the former governments violent crackdown on street protests a year ago.