The Ukrainian army is in control of Maryinka, attacked by militants on Wednesday, Ukrainian Presidential Administration spokesman for the anti-terrorist operation in the southeast Andriy Lysenko has said.
“Yesterday, in disregard of the Minsk agreements, the militants tried to mount an offensive on the Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk sector. The fighting was severest in the Donetsk airport area, the northwestern outskirts of Maryinka, and Svitlodarsk. In addition to the broad use of large-caliber tube artillery, 120mm mortars and tanks, the illegal armed units conducted at least eleven attacks on our positions using Grad rocket launchers,” he said at a press briefing in Kyiv on June 4.
Considering the threat to the life of Ukrainian servicemen and Maryinka civilians, the Ukrainian command decided to use the artillery weapons which had been earlier pulled out to comply with the Minsk accords, Lysenko said.
“The move was coordinated with international partners and observed by the OSCE mission. Our servicemen defended their lines courageously and professionally, and the enemy had to retreat. As before, Maryinka is under full control of the Ukrainian authorities,” he said.
In his words, militants had suffered heavy losses.
“Yesterday, in the Maryinka battle, the illegal armed units lost up to ten armored vehicles, up to 80 militants were killed and over 100 were wounded. The bodies of dead militants are lying on the neutral ground,” he said.
A record number of flights by hostile drones, 62, were observed in the army operation zone on Wednesday, and another two drones were flying along the Ukrainian-Russian state border in the Luhansk region, Lysenko said.
