Resurgent government forces have hoisted the Ukrainian flag over pro-Russian rebels' main stronghold of Slavyansk after a shelling onslaught levelled much of the city, but delivered Kiev the biggest success of its campaign.
The self-proclaimed mayor of Slavyansk confirmed on Saturday that insurgents had abandoned the city of 120,000. A local resident said by phone that barricades once manned by the camouflage-clad gunmen stood abandoned.
Images posted on YouTube showed helmeted troops carrying dozens of grenade launchers out of the barricaded Slavyansk city hall building as the blue-and-yellow national banner streamed under a blazing blue sky.
Kiev's ability to win back Slavyansk - home to one of the country's biggest weapons storage facilities that fell to the insurgents in early April - marks a key turning point in three months of low-scale warfare that has threatened the survival of the ex-Soviet state.
Rebel fighters apparently withdrew to nearby Kramatorsk, but did not stop there. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said late Saturday "the military operation to liberate Slavyansk and Kramatorsk is over", also ordering all administrations to resume normal business.
Rebels also withdrew to Gorlivka, a city of 260,000, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Slavyansk, according to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
The self-styled deputy prime minister of the separatist Donetsk Republic, Andrei Purgin, said about 150 wounded rebels from Slavyansk would be treated at Donetsk hospitals, Interfax-Ukraine agency said.
Pro-Russian authorities called a rally Sunday in the city's Lenin square in support of the rebels, even as one of their main leaders, Denis Pushilin, said on his Twitter account that the withdrawal was "tactical".
"We will win," he insisted.
Interior minister Avakov said the withdrawal was led by senior militia commander Igor Strelkov - alleged by Kiev to be a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence unit.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stormed to victory in a May 25 election thanks to his vow to quickly resolve the country's worst crisis since independence in 1991.
Most analysts think the 48-year-old chocolate baron desperately needed an early battlefield victory to secure the trust of Ukrainians frustrated by their underfunded army's inability to stand up to what they see as Russian aggression.
Poroshenko immediately vowed to press on with his offensive and flush out "terrorists who are entrenching themselves in large cities".
Strelkov himself had told the pro-Kremlin LifeNews channel on Friday that his units "will be destroyed... within a week, two weeks at the latest" unless Russia moved in its troops.
The militia commander tweeted on Saturday that President Vladimir Putin's repeated vow to use "all available means" to protect his compatriots in Ukraine - a neighbour he referred to as "New Russia" - now looked like an empty promise.
Clashes in the economically-vital border regions of Lugansk and Donetsk picked up with renewed vigour when Poroshenko tore up a 10-day ceasefire agreement earlier this week.
His decision was immediately followed by the launch of a "massive" offensive by Kiev that prompted Germany and France to spearhead a new push for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
US President Barack Obama has also urged Putin to commit himself to a solution in Ukraine that could stave off punishing American sanctions against Russia's banking and arms exports sectors.
Uneasy EU leaders are hoping that a firm promise by Putin not to meddle in Ukraine can take pressure off the 28-nation bloc to adopt punitive steps that could damage their own strong energy and financial ties with Russia.
But Poroshenko's call for European-mediated truce talks on Saturday was left unanswered by Moscow and the separatist command.
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