A man holds a white flag as he drives a car in the direction of Luhansk outside the town of Schastye. President Poroshenko has signalled his aim to put a pro-Western and business-friendly stamp on his leadership and set out peace proposals for the rebellious east involving a unilateral ceasefire by government forces.

AFP

Kiev

Ukraine’s new Western-backed president announced plans yesterday to order a unilateral ceasefire in the separatist east that could help end a bloody pro-Russian insurgency and avert his ex-Soviet country’s breakup.

Petro Poroshenko took a further step towards relieving tensions with Russia by deciding to replace acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya – a hate figure in Moscow – with his current envoy to OSCE-mediated negotiations with the Kremlin.

But he also appealed for US and EU help to secure his country’s porous border with Russia and stem the influx of arms and militants into the conflict zone.

The frontier has witnessed ferocious clashes in recent weeks in which militants armed with Russian-made rocket launchers have attacked Ukrainian border guard camps and ambushed army patrols.

A Ukrainian defence spokesman said the rebels had recently “stepped up their activities” and killed three soldiers.

But the respected Dzerkalo Tyzhnia news site cited defence sources as saying that the fighting had killed 15 soldiers and left 13 others missing.

Poroshenko unveiled his peace initiative after late-night talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which the Kremlin chief also raised concern about the death in Luhansk fighting on Tuesday of two members of a Russian state TV crew.

“The peace plan begins with my order for a unilateral ceasefire,” Poroshenko told reporters in Kiev. “Immediately after that, we must receive support for the presidential peace plan from all sides involved (in the conflict).”

Acting Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval said the order would be issued “literally within days”.

Poroshenko’s plan also calls for Putin to formally recognise the new leadership in Ukraine that emerged after months of deadly pro-EU protests ousted the Russian-backed president in February.

“On the one hand, they are talking about a ceasefire. And on the other, they are continuing their aggression,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Poroshenko, a 48-year-old confectionery tycoon, won Ukraine’s May 25 presidential election on a promise to quickly resolve the worst crisis since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Yet Poroshenko’s problems have since been compounded by a cut in Russian gas supplies that threatens to plunge the country into an even deeper recession and erode his public support.

Poroshenko said the ceasefire was meant to be a temporary measure to give militants a chance to disarm.

The rebels have previously rejected similar calls and vowed to continue a campaign to join Russia that a UN report said has killed at least 356 civilians and fighters on both sides.

The U’s rights office said in a report that the rebels had imposed a “reign of fear, if not terror” in areas under their control.

A top commander in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” dismissed Poroshenko’s initiative as “meaningless”.

“We are only interested in seeing the occupying forces leave our land,” Denis Pushilin told Moscow’s Dozhd television.

Poroshenko’s decision to tap 46-year-old Pavlo Klimkin as foreign minister will help address one of the biggest irritants in relations with Moscow.

Klimkin is a veteran diplomat who recently served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany and is now Poroshenko’s personal representative at talks with Moscow that were launched on June 8 by the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Poroshenko will personally present the candidacy of Klimkin and that of Ukraine’s new prosecutor-general for parliamentary approval today.

The new leader’s second talks with Putin in four days and nomination as foreign minister of a man who has already won a degree of Moscow’s trust come in sharp contrast to the freeze in ties that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March.

But Poroshenko has also stressed that he will be unable to put an end to the fighting until Ukraine regains complete control of its 2,000km land border with Russia.