(Bloomberg) -- Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine are preparing for a new offensive to expand their territory, signaling a six-week-old truce is in danger of crumbling.
“We’ll try to push them from here to hell because we’re tired of them killing civilians with indiscriminate fire,” Alexander Khodakovsky, who commands the 3,500-man Vostok Brigade, said in an interview at his headquarters in Donetsk. The campaign may start in the “foreseeable future,” according to Khodakovsky, who also heads the security council of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
A rebel offensive would shatter the cease-fire negotiated last month in Minsk, Belarus, and raise the risk of escalating U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia, which they blame for stoking the conflict. Ukraine and Germany, which brokered the accord with France, are calling for fresh talks as President Petro Poroshenko’s government and the insurgents accuse each other of violations.
Ukraine’s army is digging in to defend the key port of Mariupol, which NATO views as a key objective in any rebel bid to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the territory Russia annexed from Ukraine a year ago. The Sea of Azov port city, home to half a million people about 50 kilometers from Russia, is the largest government stronghold between separatist-held territory and the Black Sea peninsula.

Strengthening Mariupol

“We are constantly working to strengthen Mariupol’s line of defense,” Zoryan Shkiryak, an adviser to the Interior Ministry, said Thursday in a statement on the government’s website. “We are digging anti-tank ditches, we are building fortifications.”
A separatist offensive and an attack on Mariupol are impossible after insurgents removed heavy weapons from the area to comply with the Minsk agreement, Eduard Basurin, a top rebel official in Donetsk, said in an interview. Redeploying the weapons will take “some hours,” he said.
Rebels will need a “colossal, unimaginable” number of troops to attack Mariupol, Basurin said. Blocking supplies to smaller cities and leaving a narrow corridor for Ukrainian forces to withdraw are now the best tactical options, he said, adding that was his own opinion and not a plan.

Fighting Simmers

Ukraine’s government says rebel forces attacked its positions near Mariupol by mortar and tank for several hours last week. Shelling from rebel territory killed at least 20 people in the city in January, according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Shkiryak said the area is “quite calm” at the moment.
The EU pledged to prolong the bloc’s sanctions against Russia for backing the uprising, which has killed more than 6,000 people and devastated Ukraine’s economy. Russia denies any involvement in the conflict, aside from sending humanitarian aid.
The truce, while imperfect, has helped reduce violence and mitigate the threat of further penalties. As the price of oil stabilized, the ruble has rebounded, gaining 1.5 percent against the dollar this year after a 46 percent plunge in 2014. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Thursday said that the worst is over for the country’s economy.

Land Bridge

EU officials including President Donald Tusk have expressed concern that President Vladimir Putin may try to conquer Mariupol to create a land link to Crimea, which is only accessible from Russia by ferry and airplane.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that the EU would consider imposing further punitive measures if there’s a major violation of the cease-fire. The sanctions and collapsing energy prices sparked Russia’s biggest currency crisis since 1998 and put the nation on the brink of recession.
“We’ll have to discuss what happens if it’s not fulfilled and there are crass violations -- as in Mariupol -- then we’ll have to speak about further sanctions,” Merkel said at a news conference with Poroshenko in Berlin.
As the truce started, the separatists met a strategic objective by taking the key transport hub of Debaltseve. That victory fueled the ambition to push the Ukrainian army further back among some of the insurgents.
Khodakovsky, the rebel leader, said the idea of creating a land bridge for Russia was “in the air” before but no longer.

‘Blood-Covered Child’

“Nobody takes it seriously,” Khodakovsky, 42, said in his office building, where the corridors are adorned with drawings of a town burning from aerial bombs and a woman cradling a blood-covered child. “That’s a task for Russia because Crimea is Russian. I don’t see any indications that Russia has such a task.”
Khodakovsky, a historian and former commander in Ukraine’s special forces, said his ultimate objective is to push government troops back beyond the Dnieper River that bisects the country.
“Traditionally pro-Russian regions need to return to their normal condition,” Khodakovsky said. “I don’t accept the Donetsk People’s Republic as the final phase of existence for this bit of territory, for this reservation. It just goes again my nature.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Aliaksandr Kudrytski in Minsk, Belarus atakudrytski@bloomberg.net; Stepan Kravchenko in Donetsk, Ukraine atskravchenko@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.netBrad Cook, Paul Abelsky, Agnes Lovasz