HARGEISA(Wajaalenews);Russian President Vladimir Putin made a bellicose statement to the European Commission President, telling him that his armed forces could ‘take Kiev in a fortnight’.

The warning was made to Jose Manual Barroso over the phone, according to an Italian newspaper and came as Ukraine lost control of a key airport in the east of the country.

Mr Barroso relayed what the Russian leader said to a European council meeting at the weekend in Brussels.

People loosen parts from a burned-out Ukrainian armored personnel carrier in the village of Hrabske, eastern Ukraine

The wreckage of an armoured personel carrier is seen at an abandoned checkpoint in Olenivka, 12 miles south of Donetsk

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Ukrainian forces had pulled back from the airport near Luhansk.

However, they had destroyed seven Russian tanks and identified a major build-up of Russian forces to the north and south of the city.

‘According to our operational data, there are no fewer than four (Russian) battalion-tactical groups in Ukraine,’ he told reporters, adding that each one comprised 400 men.

Earlier, Russia faced claims from Ukraine that the rebels it backs had fired on a naval vessel with artillery.

Two seamen are missing after the attack, which came as the Kremlin increased pressure for an immediate ceasefire, at the same time as calling for rebel-held areas to become a separate state.

Figure of hate: A target depicting a portrait of Putin that’s riddled with bullet holes

Ending hostilities now would consolidate gains for pro-Moscow forces, which the Kiev government say are simply a front for Vladimir Putin.

Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukrainian forces must pull back from positions from which they can hit civilian targets, and negotiations taking place on Monday should seek an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.

‘They must leave positions from which they can harm the civilian population,’ Lavrov told students in Moscow. ‘I very much count on today’s negotiations being devoted above all to the task of agreeing an immediate ceasefire, without conditions.’

He also said that from Russia ‘there will be no military intervention (in Ukraine), we are for an exclusively peaceful resolution of that most serious crisis, that tragedy’.

Russia Today filmed the BBC’s John Sweeney confronting Mr Putin directly about the crisis. He asked him if he regretted the deaths in Ukraine.

Mr Putin said: ‘The current government in Ukraine does not want to conduct political negotiations with the eastern regions of the country. Political and essential negotiations.

‘What was the purpose of the military actions in the east of the country? What provoked the reactions in the eastern regions?

‘The Ukrainian military encircled the big cities and villages. They were shelling houses directly. The purpose of people in eastern regions is to take them away from the villages and stop them shelling the villages. This is what is being neglected in the Western countries.’

Analysts said that Putin wants to establish a ‘frozen conflict’, which would consolidate his gains in the region, giving him permanent strong influence in Ukraine.

The talks in the Belarussian capital Minsk will bring together representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE security forum and separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Lavrov’s call for a ceasefire came after Ukraine accused rebels of shelling a Navy patrol boat.

Two seamen are missing after Sunday’s separatist rebel artillery attack on a patrol boat in the Sea of Azov, and eight seamen were rescued, a Ukrainian border guard official said on Monday.

‘The cutter has sunk. We managed to save eight sailors, thanks to other cutters coming to their rescue. Seven of them are injured or burned. Two sailors have gone missing. We are continuing rescue operations,’ the official, Serhiy Astakhov, told Reuters.

‘After analysing the situation, we believe that this attack was from an artillery system but we don’t know yet where it was fired from,’ he said.