(Editor's Note: This report was updated with casualty figures sustained by the Ukrainian military in the last 24 hours; corrects and updates civilian casualty figures.)
Two Ukrainian servicemen were killed and seven wounded in the past day from attacks by combined Russian-separatist forces, Ukraine's presidential spokesman on military affairs Andriy Lysenko said in an Aug. 17 noon briefing in Kyiv.
Two civilians in addition were reported killed in a Russian-separatist shelling attack on a town near Mariupol on Aug. 17, as tensions rose and fighting raged up and down the 450-kilometer front line of Ukraine’s Donbas conflict zone.
At its daily morning briefing, Ukraine’s military said
the two died when shells hit houses in Sartana, a small town to the north east
of the port city of Mariupol in southern Donetsk Oblast. Six civilians were wounded in that attack, including a child, the military said.
The Ukrainian military said the attack had occurred at
around 10 p.m., and had involved shelling by 152-millimeter artillery. The
town of Hranitne, further to the north of Mariupol, was also attacked by such
artillery, the Ukrainian military said. According to the Minsk peace agreements
this caliber of weapon was supposed to have been withdrawn from the front
months ago, but there have been frequent reports of the use of large-caliber
artillery by both sides in recent days.
There were a number of attacks by Russian-separatist
forces in other areas of the front of Aug. 16, the Ukrainian military
said.
It said Grad multiple-rocket launcher systems were
fired near the city of Donetsk in a separatist attack on Troyitske, and there
were five separate Grad attacks on nearby Opytne from 9 p.m. to midnight on
Aug. 16. In other attacks on that evening, the Russian-separatist forces fired
122-millimeter mortars on Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Pisky, and Pervomaiske – all
towns to the west of the city of Donetsk where there has been almost daily
fighting since a ceasefire was supposed to have come into effect in eastern
Ukraine on Feb. 12.
Russian-backed separatists also attacked the town of Avdiyivka
to the north-west of Donetsk with 152-millimeter artillery and mortars, and
then two salvos of Grad rockets, according to Ukraine’s military. There were
unconfirmed reports on social media that the coke plant at Avdiyivka, which has
previously been hit by shelling, was hit again on Aug. 16.
According to the Ukrainian military, there were 148
attacks by Russian-separatist forces on Ukrainian positions on Aug. 16. There
were 136 attacks on Aug. 15, and a record 175 attacks on Aug. 14.
The level of attacks reported by the Ukrainian
military in recent days is similar that seen at the worst stages of the
conflict – in August last year, and in December and February this year –when
Russian backed separatists made major gains against Ukrainian forces at
Illovaisk and Debaltseve.
Moreover, the latest attacks come at a time of high
tension in the Ukraine conflict, with both sides accusing the other of
preparing to launch an offensive. According to a report by UK newspaper the
Independent on Sunday, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council believes
there are 33,400
Russian-backed separatist soldiers inside eastern Ukraine, with 400 main battle
tanks and close to 2,000 armored troop carriers at “full combat readiness.” The
council also said that there are more than 50,000 Russian troops on the border, and more than 9,000
already inside Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin-backed
separatist leader in Donestk, Alexander Zakhachenko, on Aug. 16 said the Minsk
peace process had come off the rails and that the situation on the front was
worsening.
“We can’t say that all
this will end peacefully,” Zacharchenko said at a news conference. “We have to
win and build a state.”
And the upsurge in
fighting in eastern Ukraine prompted German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to describe the situation there as “explosive”
in an interview published on Aug. 16 by German newspaper Bild am
Sonntag, news agency Reuters reported.
“There
is a lot at stake. If both parties in the conflict don’t return to the peace
process, a new military escalation spiral could be triggered at any time,”
Steinmeier said.
Germany, along with France, brokered the latest Minsk
peace deal signed on Feb. 12. Dubbed “Minsk II,” that deal is actually an
agreement on how to implement the first Minsk peace deal, which was reached
last September.
According to Minsk II deal, a ceasefire was supposed
to come into effect from one minute past midnight on Feb. 15. But almost
immediately after their leaders signed the peace deal, Russian-separatist
forces launched an offensive to take the Ukrainian-held town of Debaltseve – a
vital rail hub. Ukrainian forces withdrew from the town on Feb. 18 to escape
encirclement by separatist forces.
Around 7,000 people have so far been killed in the war
in Ukraine, making it the worst military conflict on European soil since the
Balkans conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Kyiv Post editor Euan MacDonald
can be reached at [email protected].
