DONETSK, Ukraine — Driven out of their key stronghold in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russia separatists regrouped on Sunday in the city of Donetsk, vowing to renew their fight against the government in Kiev before thousands of cheering supporters at a rally.
Ukrainian troops on Saturday forced the rebels out of Slovyansk, a city of about 100,000 that had been the center of the fighting. The government's success there suggested it may be making gains in the months-long battle against the insurgency.
President Petro Poroshenko said, while it was not a total victory, purging Slovyansk of the armed insurgents had “incredible symbolic importance.”
It was not yet clear, however, whether the rebels have been permanently crippled and their setback will increase pressure on Russia to do more to help them.
Rebel fighters from Slovyansk and other towns taken over by the Ukrainian army moved freely around central Donetsk, a city of 1 million and the capital of a region where the separatists have declared independence in the name of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The insurgents control the regional administration building and checkpoints on the city outskirts, but Ukrainian forces demonstrated their superior firepower in repelling a rebel attempt to take control of Donetsk airport in late May.
Igor Girkin, the defense minister of the separatist republic, told the Russian television channel Life News that he would keep up the fight from Donetsk.
At the rally on Sunday afternoon on a square in Donetsk, people waved flags from Russia and the Donetsk People's Republic.
“We will begin a real partisan war around the whole perimeter of Donetsk,” Pavel Gubarev, the self-described governor of the Donetsk People's Republic, told the crowd. “We will drown these wretches in blood.”
