Fighting has intensified in Donbas over the last 24 hours, Ukrainian authorities reported on Jan. 5, as fears abounded of an imminent attack and casualties continued to pile up despite the ceasefire.
Russian-separatist forces attacked Ukrainian positions in Pisky, Opytne and near Donetsk airport around 20 times using grenade launchers, according to Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a spokesman for the Presidential Administration on the war.
The ceasefire was also violated in Donetsk Oblast’s Shyrokyne near the port city of Mariupol.
Earlier,
combined Russian-separatist forces launched an offensive on the villages of Luhanske
and Zaitseve in Donetsk Oblast.
“This
territory – together with Donetsk airport – remains one of the most promising
for the (Russian-backed) combatants, while the situation in Luhansk Oblast
remains relatively calm,” Motuzyanyk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Jan. 5.
The news came as the main intelligence department of the Defense Ministry issued a statement warning that Russian-separatist forces were boosting forces along the front line and setting up fortifications in Severodonetsk, as if preparing for full-scale fighting.
Although
no military casualties were reported on Jan. 5, at least three Ukrainian
soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the year.
On Jan. 1,
a soldier of the Aidar Battalion, 28-year-old Nazar Holyuk was shot near the city
of Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast. On the same day, 18-year-old Oleksandr Koval of the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s
National Guard was killed near the city of Mariupol. Koval, a native of
Chernivtsi Oblast, was a member of Svoboda’s youth branch. He was the only son in his family.
“He was too
young for this war,” Yaroslvav Kohutyak, a Svoboda party member, was quoted as
saying in Ukrainian media. “He promised his mom that he’d come back alive, but it never happened.
We’re losing the best of our people.”
Another
Ukrainian fighter – Dnipro-1 member Roman Bocharov – was killed on Jan. 2 near
the village of Herasymovka close to Stanytsia-Luhanska. Bocharov died from mishandling a weapon, however, according to Ukrainian authorities.
While
recent months have seen a decrease in fighting, the new year has kicked off with plenty of signs that the war may heat up again. These concerns prompted leaders from Ukraine, Russia,
France and Germany to agree on Dec. 30 to extend the Minsk truce agreement into
2016, hoping that the peace deal will lead to an end to Russia’s war
against Ukraine. The war has already killed over 9,000 people, including military personnel and
civilians, according to the UN.
Meanwhile,
Ukrainian officials recently discussed the possibility of employing an international peacekeeping
mission in Ukraine’s Donbas.
On
Jan. 4, Ukraine’s recently-appointed
representative to the United Nations Volodymyr Yelchenko said during a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon that the country’s leadership would be ready to work out “the mandate
and other aspects of such an operation.”
“In order
to analyze the situation on the ground we invite the assessment mission of the
UN Secretariat to visit Ukraine,” Yelchenko said.
Opening a
UN mission in support of the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements on
Donbas is also on the agenda, according
to Yelchenko. This mission could be engaged in coordination of a land mine
clearance operation in the east of Ukraine.
