Ukrainian servicemen from the Azov Battalion train volunteers on Sept. 3 in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Mariupol, the Donetsk Oblast city of 500,000 people on the Azov Sea, is located
about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russian border and about 35 kilometers from
Novoazovsk, which has been taken over by Russian-backed rebels.
Beleaguered
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced on Sept. 3 that he
and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had agreed a surprise truce
in Ukraine’s four-month war with the insurgents.
But the Kremlin
immediately denied any formal agreement and stressed that Russia played
no role in the conflict despite Western claims that it has orchestrated
the insurgency tearing apart the ex-Soviet state.
