You're reading: Poroshenko says full-blown ‘war’ possible as situation in Ukraine’s east further deteriorates

Full-scale war can flare up instantly, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko warned at the International Support for Ukraine converence in Kyiv on April 28.

The threat of war is still hanging over
us. It is our reality. War may erupt at any moment
,” Poroshenko said. “But we are prepared to do everything we can to
erase any possibility to doubt or retreat
.”

He
also promised to find a way of resolving the conflict in easternmost Donetsk
and Luhansk Oblasts where combined Russian-separatist forces have waged an
unprovoked war against Kyiv since mid-April 2014.

Poroshenko’s
pledge came as Ukraine’s military said that Kremlin-backed forces are again
firing heavy weapons on civilian and army positions.

They shelled
Ukrainian positions 22 times overnight on April 27-28, according to the latest
military press office report, posted online on April 28.

“The
criminals again used heavy artillery and rocket systems of volley fire,
including attacks against civilians,” stated the report.

Grad
rocket launchers were fired on Novolaspa in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian forces also
faced attacks from 82-millimeter and 120-millimeter mortars.

Pro-Kyiv
forces also reported that seven Russian-separatists’ drones were seen on April
27, mostly near Mariupol, the strategic Azov Sea coastal city, which had a
pre-war population of 500,000.

One
Ukrainian soldier was killed and seven were wounded in the last 24 hours, Kyiv
authorities said on April 27.

In
total, during Russia’s war against Ukraine
6,225 people have been killed and
15,511 wounded in the conflict zone, according to the latest U.N. report published
on April 20. This includes 175 children who were killed and 66 wounded.

In its
latest report, published late on April 26, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe said that its
monitoring mission
observed “ceasefire violations in and around the
wider area of Donetsk airport as well as Avdiivka, including the use of 120-milimeter
mortars and artillery”.

It
also noted the “most intense shelling in Shyrokyne (20 kilometers east of
Mariupol) since fighting began in the area in mid-February.”

According
to the mission’s Facebook page, Moscow-backed separatists in the region didn’t
allow OSCE observers to enter the part of Shyrokyne that the government doesn’t
control “for the third time in four days”.

Deputy
head of the mission Alexander Hug said that free access had been guaranteed to
the OSCE by 57 countries, including Russia.

Staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected].