NEWLY appointed Ukrainian Defence Minister Valery Heletey demanded complete surrender by pro-Russian insurgents in the country’s east today as the only acceptable price for negotiations.

Mr Heletey insisted that the rebels lay down their weapons amid growing confidence among government forces after they drove the insurgent militias from their previous stronghold of Sloviansk.

“There will be no more unilateral ceasefires,” he declared on the Defence Ministry website.

The minister, who is of a police rather than military background, won applause in the Ukrainian parliament last month when he forecast that Kiev would regain sovereignty over Crimea, promising a victory parade in the key city of Sevastopol.

Moscow annexed the territory after a 96.7 per cent vote by residents in favour of returning to Russia.

But Mr Heletey told the Verkhovna Rada: “I am convinced that Ukraine will win and trust me, a victory parade will certainly be held in a Ukrainian Crimea.”

President Petro Poroshenko had pledged ceasefire talks no later than last Saturday, but a series of military successes by the Ukrainian army have clearly changed minds in Kiev. 

Pro-Kiev troops routed the rebels in Sloviansk at the weekend, making use of artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships and forcing hundreds of pro-Russian forces to regroup in the regional capital Donetsk.

Donetsk Mayor Alexander Borodai said that Mr Porshenko, with whom he had a meeting, had suggested talks in Sviatogorsk, a government-controlled town in the north of the region.

“I don’t think we will go there. It’s not safe,” said Mr Borodai, suggesting that locations acceptable to the rebels might include Russia, Belarus or Donetsk itself.

More than 400 people have died and thousands have fled their homes after a nearly three-month-long struggle between the rebels and the new authorities in Kiev, who came to power after ex-president Viktor Yanukovych’s overthrow in February.

Rebels in Ukraine and nationalists in Russia have called for the Kremlin to use military power to protect the insurgents.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far made no comment on the rebels’ defeat in Sloviansk, while state media and other officials have downplayed the loss.