Civilians perish in fierce eastern Ukraine fighting
InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
KYIV/DONETSK – Intense fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine killed dozens of civilians, soldiers and rebels, as Kyiv pressed on with an offensive on Tuesday including near the wreckage of Malaysian flight MH 17.
Ukrainian forces have been pushing rebel units back towards their two main urban strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk and have sought to encircle them in several places. The government says its forces have retaken several villages in the rolling countryside near where the airliner crashed on July 17.
Officials said up to 17 people, including children, were killed in fighting on Monday evening in the town of Horlivka, a rebel stronghold north of Donetsk that saw fierce battles between the rival forces in the last few days.
In the city of Luhansk, officials said five civilians were killed when shelling hit a retirement home.
“The enemy is throwing everything it has into the battle to complete encirclement of the DNR,” Igor Strelkov, a Muscovite rebel commander, told journalists in Donetsk on Monday evening, referring to the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic”.
A rebel source in Donetsk said reinforcements including military equipment and fighters had arrived across the nearby border from Russia into Ukraine. Reuters was not able to confirm that independently.
Rebel leaders insist publicly that Moscow is not supplying them. Russia also denies Western accusations that it is supporting the rebellion with arms and troops.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, Andriy Lysenko, blamed Russia for shelling a Ukrainian border crossing point and military positions from across the border to help the rebels.
Western countries say Moscow has stepped up its support for the rebels since the downing of the airliner, which Washington says was almost certainly shot down accidentally by rebels using an advanced Russian-made surface-to-air missile.