Battles rage in rebel stronghold in Ukraine
KYIV: Ukraine said on Tuesday fighting had erupted in the heart of major rebel stronghold Lugansk, as the bodies of 17 civilians fleeing the city were recovered from wreckage of their destroyed convoy.
As government forces cut deeper into insurgent territory, Kyiv and Moscow announced that Presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko will hold their first face-to-face talks in months next week with pressure piling on to end four
months of brutal fighting.
Kyiv’s military claimed for the first time that street battles with pro-Russian insurgents were raging in the centre of second-largest insurgent hub Lugansk after one outlying district was “liberated”.
If confirmed, any advance by Ukraine’s army into Lugansk, which has endured brutal shelling and weeks without running water or electricity, would be a major breakthrough for Kyiv in the bloody conflict that has claimed over 2,100 lives since April.
Adding to this toll, the military said it had recovered the bodies of 17 civilians burned alive when a convoy evacuating them from Lugansk was hit by a rebel mortar strike on Monday.
Pro-Kremlin insurgents have denied the allegations, which could not be independently verified.
A fresh push to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine was underway after weekend talks between the top diplomats from both countries failed to make any breakthrough.
Kyiv has claimed the Kremlin is ramping up weapon supplies in a bid to stave off defeat for the rebels and could be readying to invade as a last throw of the dice, allegations rejected by Moscow.
Moscow and Kyiv announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko will hold their first face-to-face talks in almost three months at a meeting in Minsk with top EU officials on Aug 26.
The encounter will come three days after a key visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Kyiv for crisis talks with Ukraine’s leadership.
Valeriy Chalyi, a senior official in Ukraine’s presidency, expressed cautious optimism that a “precise diplomatic roadmap” was taking shape that could help steer a path towards peace.
“We are moving from telephone diplomacy to direct interaction and it will be a very important week for the future prospects,” he said.
Two senior UN officials — Under-Secretary General Jeffrey Feltman and humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos — are also set to travel to Kyiv later this week.
No peace, no water: In the industrial eastern region, deadly shelling also rained down around the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk as government troops tightened their grip on rebels clinging on.
A photographer in the adjoining city of Makiyivka saw the bodies of one woman and two men killed by shelling sprawled in the streets.
Smoke could also be seen billowing from the nearby town of Yasynuvata, where Kyiv said its troops were conducting a “mopping-up” operation.
Shelling rang out around Donetsk, which had a pre-war population of one million, as locals again queued for water after fighting cut supplies over the weekend.
Poroshenko said Monday that Ukraine was readjusting its military strategy following fresh rebel claims they were receiving troop reinforcements from neighbouring Russia to prop up their struggling insurgency, which has forced more than 285,000 people to flee.
He said government forces were “regrouping” as they sought to continue the offensive.
A military spokesman said one soldier was killed and 28 injured over the past 24 hours.
Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2014