Ukraine's pro-Moscow rebels launch rare tank exercises

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ukraine's pro-Moscow insurgents showed off their military prowess on Thursday, September 24 by launching exercises involving heavy tanks that Kiev claims they had covertly received from Russia, AFP reports.

The self-proclaimed "tank biathlon" mirrored manoeuvres that Russia has been staging with its former Soviet allies since 2013.

But the peculiar military festivities were marred somewhat by an unexplained tank explosion about six kilometres (four miles) away in which one rebel fighter was killed.

The conflict -- Europe's bloodiest since the Balkans wars of the 1990s -- has killed nearly 8,000 people and effectively severed Moscow's relations with the West.

Russia hotly disputes fomenting the crisis in reprisal for last year's ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed leader and his eventual replacement by pro-EU President Petro Poroshenko.

But NATO head Jens Stoltenberg told AFP in Brussels there was "no doubt that there is a strong Russian presence in the eastern part of Ukraine".

Violence has subsided considerably since the warring sides signed off on a new truce deal on September 1. Kiev said one soldier was killed after setting off a tripwire but that otherwise the situation remained calm.

Yet tensions remain high and the sides have made little progress toward implementing a broader ceasefire and political reconciliation agreement that is due to go into force by the end of the year.

Both Kiev and rebel commanders have vowed to return to all out warfare should their political demands not be met at ongoing talks in the Belarussian capital of Minsk.

Poroshenko will also meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Germany and France in Paris on October 2 in a bid to get a broader consensus on clinching a lasting peace.