KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian government will restart cease-fire negotiations with pro-Russian insurgents in the country's east only once the rebels lay down their weapons, the defense minister said Tuesday 
 
 Ukrainian tanks roll to the base in Devhenke village, Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine, Monday, July 7, 2014. There was no word Monday from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who had promised to start... (Associated Press) 
 
 Ukrainian tanks take their position at the base in Devhenke village, Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine, Monday, July 7, 2014. There was no word Monday from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who had... (Associated Press) 
 
 Valery Heletey's statement, posted on the Defense Ministry website, comes amid growing confidence among government forces after they drove the insurgent militia from their stronghold of Slovyansk. 
 
 Last week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised cease-fire talks no later than that Saturday, but a series of military successes by the Ukrainian army may have changed minds in Kiev. Instead, on Saturday, Ukrainian troops routed the rebels in Slovyansk, forcing hundreds of militants to regroup in the regional capital, Donetsk — a rare and significant victory for Ukraine, which has often appeared helpless in the face of the spreading insurgency. 
 
 On Tuesday, the mayor of Donetsk issued a statement after a meeting with Poroshenko, saying the president suggested talks could take place in Svyatogorsk, a town in the north of the region. 
 
 The insurgents would be unlikely to agree to Svyatogorsk, which is controlled by Kiev. "I don't think we will go there. It's not safe," rebel leader Alexander Borodai told Interfax news agency. He said locations acceptable to the rebels include Donetsk, Russia or Belarus. 
 
 A 10-day cease-fire that ended in late June was punctuated by frequent clashes and provided no progress in reaching a negotiated settlement. More than 400 people have died and thousands have fled their homes after a nearly three-month-long standoff between the rebels and the new authorities in Kiev, who came to power after the ex-president's ouster in February. 
 
 Rebels in Ukraine and nationalists in Russia have called for the Kremlin to protect the insurgents, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far made no comment on the rebels' defeat in Slovyansk, while state media and other officials have downplayed the loss. Putin may be wary of more sanctions being imposed by the West, which slapped visa bans and financial sanctions on Russia's top officials for their role in annexing the Black Sea region of Crimea in March. ||||| As Ukraine laid plans for a siege of pro-Russia separatists' remaining bastions Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin faced a critical decision on whether to answer rebel pleas for military help—a move that could determine what he gains or loses following a monthslong conflict that has roiled global powers. 
 
 Russia has encouraged and supported the separatists during their insurgency, but has been unusually quiet since the Ukrainian... ||||| It has been raining for two days in the black earth region of eastern Ukraine, and the soldiers perching on the motley collection of vehicles clogging the southbound lane of the highway into Slavyansk huddle under their ponchos like drowned rats. 
 
 But they still manage to flash victory signs at their comrades manning roadside checkpoints. For this is an army on the advance, and the city they are entering was until 48 hours ago their enemies’ most important redoubt. 
 
 Ukrainian forces established a ring of checkpoints around Slavyansk in early May, effectively laying siege to the city in an attempt to contain the rebel expansion. 
 
 But the blockade was fractured and the isolated checkpoints vulnerable to attacks by rebel forces based in the city. 
 
 A little over a week earlier, rebels used tanks to surprise and destroy a checkpoint to the north of the city, in a demoralising blow to government forces. 
 
 It was one strike in a scrappy war of raid and counter-raid at which the highly motivated pro-Russian fighters excelled – and which appeared to be locked in a bloody stalemate. 
 
 Ukrainian soldiers look at wrecked tanks and armored personnel carriers left by pro-Russian insurgents in Slavyansk, Ukraine (Getty) 
 
 That resistance crumbled suddenly and in the early hours of Saturday morning, following several days of artillery bombardment to which the rebels had no answer. 
 
 Gathering their remaining tanks and fighting vehicles, Igor Strelkov, the rebel commander, and his men made a desperate dash for Donetsk, the regional capital 60 miles to the south where the self-declared People’s Republic had established its government. 
 
 Most – but not all – of the fighters appear to have got through. With the rebel army regrouping, fears are growing of a similar, and perhaps even bloodier, siege in Donetsk, which, with a population of one million, is 10 times the size of Slavyansk. 
 
 Two days after the break-out, Slavyansk – scarred by battle, but far from destroyed – is still a long way from a return to pre-war normality. Ukrainian troops are building their own pillboxes to reinforce checkpoints and sandbag bunkers once manned by pro-Russian militiamen. 
 
 There is still no running water or electricity. Gas has cut out more than once and few, if any, businesses are open. The streets remain largely deserted, much of the civilian population having fled or remaining indoors. 
 
 On Lenin Square, a small crowd of mostly elderly civilians waited for distribution of the “humanitarian” supplies – mostly food, water and medicines – promised by Kiev. Lenin’s statue now supports a shield emblazoned with the stylised trident of the Ukrainian coat of arms. 
 
 The exact extent of the damage is still difficult to assess. Access to the city and surrounding area is strictly controlled by the Ukrainians. 
 
 “We’ve got nothing. Nothing. I never expected to feel such fear,” said Elena, 51, as she watched Ukrainian troops trying to salvage a tank – it was not clear whose – that had rolled down a nearby gully. “We’ve only survived because we keep a bit of a reserve of water and food.” 
 
 Mines lay near a destroyed pro-Russian APC near the city of Slovyansk (AP) 
 
 Like many, she declined to voice a preference for one side or the other, only giving thanks that the fear and danger of the past three months appears to be at an end. 
 
 A mile further on, just past the roadside monolith welcoming drivers to Slavyansk, the blackened turret of another tank obstructed the northbound lane. The rest of the vehicle had been thrown off the embankment on the other side of the road. Between them was the crater of the explosion that destroyed it. 
 
 Nearby, the tangled remains of an armoured personnel carrier sat among Ukrainian anti-tank mines, destroyed vehicle parts, and its own unused ammunition, apparently scattered but not detonated by the explosion that destroyed it. 
 
 Major Andrei Tokatsyuk, the Ukrainian paratrooper who has commanded a checkpoint here since early May, said this was all that remained of a rebel armoured column that had tried to break through his checkpoint in the early hours of Saturday. 
 
 He claimed to have lost one man, compared with almost the entire rebel force, though he declined to put a number on the enemy dead. One burnt body remained unburied on the hard shoulder. 
 
 This appears to be a victory won partly by superior fire power – it is the vast artillery barrage unleashed by the Ukrainians following the end of a ceasefire last week that appears to have finally forced the rebels into retreat. 
 
 But it is also a matter of attrition and numbers. Where the “anti-terrorist operation” was once an undermanned, under-equipped shambles, the area is now swarming with thousands of servicemen in a motley mix of uniforms – special forces, regular army, police and the National Guard, which is largely drawn from the revolutionary militias that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych in February. In a strange twist, they now serve alongside men of the Berkut, the elite riot police with whom they fought running battles in Kiev this winter. Even the freelance pro-Kiev militias such as the Donbass battalion, raised and equipped by private individuals and with a previously fractious relationship with the army, appear to have been brought into the fold. 
 
 An elderly woman walks away from a damaged house in Slavyansk, Ukraine (Photoshot) 
 
 The columns of advancing troops moving south into the newly captured territory over the past two days may be led by armoured vehicles, but many troops travel in buses, police cars, and Nissan pick-up trucks sprayed green and mounted with machineguns. 
 
 Neither side in this war is rich and both armies depend on imaginative battlefield improvisation. But the superior numbers and resources of the Ukrainians are beginning to tell. 
 
 Out-gunned, outnumbered, and with the Kremlin refusing to respond to their pleas for military intervention, the fighters of the Donetsk People’s Republic appear to be facing certain defeat. 
 
 Yet this war is still far from over. 
 
 The rebel militia may have suffered a major setback, but their dogged defence of Slavyansk and the breakout itself shows a fighting ability and level of motivation that will make any battle for Donetsk a bloody affair. 
 
 On Monday, Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Ahmetov, pleaded with the government not to bomb his home city. Pro-Russian rebels put up new barricades and residents said they feared the potential battle to come. Thousands have already left Donetsk, but most have nowhere to go, local officials said. 
 
 Meanwhile the rebels are preparing for the expected government assault, destroying a railway bridge to block the highway north of the city and blowing up bridges on two other roads. 
 
 They have even commandeered a vintage Soviet tank from the city’s Second World War museum. “We have got an engine to go in it,” said one rebel. “We have got some experts. We have to add the engine, ease the turret and it will be a working battle tank.”
– Separatists in Eastern Ukraine are starting to complain that Moscow has sold them out, as they prepare for what the New York Times is declaring their "last stand." As they retreated toward Donetsk yesterday, insurgents blew up two road bridges and a railroad bridge behind them. An emboldened Ukraine today said that it would not reopen ceasefire negotiations until the rebels had laid down their weapons entirely, the AP reports. The once undermanned and outgunned Ukrainian force is now noticeably better armed, using buses and pickup trucks alongside its armored vehicles to transport what the Telegraph describes as a "motley mix" of police, special forces, and militiamen. Ukraine says it has succeeded in sealing the Russian border, preventing troops and weapons from flowing to the rebels. But Vladimir Putin has been suspiciously silent, ignoring the separatists' increasingly urgent pleas for help, and many are speculating that he aims to cut his losses, having already taken the real prize of Crimea, the Wall Street Journal reports. Observers believe Moscow has ruled out any military intervention, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov struck a decidedly peaceful tone at a news conference, saying, "A quick end to the bloodshed is in our common interest." But one US official cautioned against declaring victory. "There is only one person who knows what Putin is planning," he said, "and that is Putin."