You're reading: Ukraine forces face artillery, tanks in Donetsk Oblast as fighting intensifies

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and 10 wounded in the last 48 hours in war-weary eastern Ukraine where combined Russian-separatist forces resumed the use of heavy weapons, including Grad rocket launchers and tanks on military positions.


Government forces faced 60 attacks in the last two days from tanks, 82-, 120-, and 122-milimeter mortars, and multiple-rocket launchers on positions near Donetsk city and in Shyrokyne near the Azov Sea, according to the Defense Ministry’s website.

One Donbas Battalion soldier was killed and two wounded on May 2 near Shyrokyne, according to the military unit’s Facebook page.

The military said eight soldiers were wounded on May 1.

“The last two days in Shyrokyne have seen almost incessant fighting,” Donbas Battalion said in an early morning Facebook post on May 3. At around midnight, Ukrainian forces repelled an attack by combined Russian-separatist reconnaissance and “sabotage” groups near Mariyinka in Donetsk Oblast, according to the Defense Ministry.

The Kremlin-backed fighters used automatic grenade launchers and small arms.

As a result, a 59-year-old civilian male was killed, UNIAN reported.

Moscow and the separatists blamed Ukraine forinstigating the fighting by accusing pro-government forces of shelling the city of Donetsk.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement released shortlyafter midnight on May 3 blamed “Ukrainian armed forces” for “shelling Donetsk using heavy artillery.”

Citing separatists in Donetsk, Vesti.rureported on May 2 that the city was being shelled with 155-millimeterartillery, “a caliber that is only used by NATO.”

Self-proclaimed separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko on May 1 announced another offensive on pro-government forces,reported Novosti Donbas.

In daily briefings in Kyiv, Ukraine’s military says that it only returns fire when attacked and has denied shelling Donetsk city.

“Whoever conducted tonight’s shelling of Donetsk neither acted in the interest of Ukraine nor on Ukraine’s command,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria tweeted on May 3. More than 100 Ukrainian soldiers have beenkilled in eastern Ukraine since a truce that never took hold was brokered on Feb. 12 in Minsk, Belarus.