The militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) claims that its forces have taken the strategically important town of Ilovaisk in the Donetsk region and that the fighting in and around the city has stopped.
“It’s quiet in the city now. Preliminary reports indicate that Ukrainian armed forces and territorial defense battalions have either retreated or have been destroyed. Nothing can be said for sure, as the city and its suburbs are being mopped up now,” a source with the DPR militia told Interfax.
DPR armed groups control the city now. No information is currently available on the opposing sides’ losses.
Zorian Shkiriak, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, said that fighting was continuing in Ilovaisk. “Heavy skirmishes are going on in Ilovaisk. Forces are being regrouped now to provide reinforcements to our troops in Ilovaisk immediately, unblock them and get them out of the encirclement,” Shkiriak said on Facebook on Aug. 27.
Semen Semenchenko, the commander of the Ukrainian volunteer battalion Donbas, said on Facebook that “there will be no help today.” He suggested that, “if the so-far weak screens on the Kuteinykove-Starobesheve road harden and the second line of blockade appears, this is going to be a mass grave.”
Semenchenko charged that the authorities have once again left the troops to the mercy of fate and called on Kyiv residents to press the authorities and picket the presidential office on Wednesday evening and the General Staff on Thursday to make them react and improve the situation.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko had said earlier that the government forces in Ilovaisk had been provided with reinforcements.
“Reinforcements have been sent to the forces remaining in Ilovaisk now, and some of those injured have been evacuated,” Lysenko said at a news conference in Kyiv on Aug. 27.
Combat activities there are continuing, “and there is information that there are more injured people there, and therefore the evacuation operation and the sending of additional forces are continuing,” he added.
Semen Semenchenko said earlier on Facebook that the armed groups opposing the Ukrainian government forces are shelling them with long-range artillery guns. “Today is the decisive day,” Semenchenko said.
