10:22 pm, September 09, 2014
The Associated PressMARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Seeking to rally national unity, President Petro Poroshenko visited a southeastern port Monday that has been assaulted for days by Russian-backed separatists and declared the city would remain a part of Ukraine.
After a series of military defeats to increasingly confident rebel forces in the country’s eastern regions, Ukraine signed a cease-fire deal Friday that has been widely viewed at home as an act of capitulation. Much of the region has remained calm as the truce appeared to be holding, although sporadic unrest was reported.
“We will do everything to ensure there is peace, but we will also brace ourselves for the defense [of] our country,” Poroshenko told metal workers at a plant that was within the range of the rebels’ rockets.
Also Monday, the Kremlin said Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone and “continued to discuss steps helping peaceful settlement in southeastern Ukraine.”
The two leaders had also talked Saturday about implementing the cease-fire plan in the conflict that has lasted nearly five months and killed at least 3,000, according to a U.N. estimate. The fighting has also forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
“The dialogue will continue,” the Kremlin said without elaborating.
Poroshenko’s trip to Mariupol came days after it came under sustained shelling from rebels stationed along the 70-kilometer stretch between the strategic port on the Sea of Azov and the Russian border
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