Ukraine dispatch: no ceasefire in sight for Russian border refugees

As Ukraine signs an historic EU trade deal and leaders discuss ceasefire extensions, the distant thuds of tank fire prevail on Ukraine's Russian border

As Ukrainian  president Petro Poroshenko was signing a historic EU association agreement in Brussels, a series of distant thuds shook the air at a refugee transit camp on the Ukrainian border in Russia’s Rostov Region.

The muffled booms that rolled through the damp air every few minutes could almost have been thunder.

But the mechanical regularity was unmistakable: somewhere over there, tanks were firing.

It was impossible to tell who was responsible for the firing, or what their target was.

But the eruption of shooting here, on the day a ceasefire by both sides was due to come to an end, was just one more reminder that the conflict over the border is far from over.

That ceasfire is now expected to be extended to Monday. But fallout from the ongoing fighting is everywhere in the Rostov region, where refugees from Ukraine’s war-torn Luhansk and Donetsk regions are arriving almost every day.

Fifteen miles to the south, Vladimir Skomaroshov, the commander of another transit camp said over 200 people had come over the border on Thursday – twice the number his transit point has been receiving in previous days.

“I guess it was the end of the ceasefire. But today, no one. We don’t know why. There is no one manning the Ukrainian border post on the other side,” he said.

Refugees are meant to spend no more than 24 hours at Mr Skomarokhov’s small camp, before moving on to relatives or temporary accommodation elsewhere in the region or even other parts of Russia.

Many have found themselves housed in university dormitories, tented camps, and Soviet-era holiday camps around the region.

At the border post where the current resident of Mr Skomaroshov’s camp came through the previous day, the air was still.

A few taxi drivers milled around waiting to pick up fresh arrivals, although a thoughtful border guard had put up a notice listing the numbers of more reputable firms and warning newly arrived Ukrainians not to pay more than 300 roubles for a ride to the nearest town.

As the ceasefire that never really took hold approached its scheduled end, no one came across, and the long road toward Rostov remained empty.

But the signs of conflict do not stop at the chain link fence denoting this part of the Russian frontier.

A kilometre back from the border post, Russian troops have dug in armoured fighting vehicles, their barrels facing down the road toward Ukraine – a precaution, perhaps, against the fight spilling over the border, as it has on several occasions.

An hour after Mr Poroshenko signed his deal in Brussels, Vladimir Putin used a televised speech to deplore the continuing violence and urge a ceasefire and talks between the two sides to return Ukraine to the negotiating table.

But looking over the border into Ukraine’s strife-torn southeast, that seems as distant a prospect as ever.

By Roland Oliphant