Six Ukrainian soldiers killed as clashes on Russian border flare up

At least six Ukrainian soldiers were killed in renewed attacks on government
military posts and checkpoints by pro-Moscow separatists near the border with
Russia, the Ukrainian military said on Tuesday.

There were also reports of an air strike killing four civilians in the small
town of Snizhne, for which Kyiv denied responsibility and appeared to point a
finger at Russia – two days after Moscow threatened retaliation for the death of
man when a shell landed on the Russian side of the border.

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“Today at 7 a.m. an unknown plane carried out a bombing attack on Snizhne.
The flight can be described only as a cynical provocation,” Andriy Lysenko, a
spokesman for Ukraine’s National Defence and Security Council, told
reporters.

His remarks appeared to be an accusation against Russia, since the rebels
have not used aircraft in the conflict.

Fighting over the past four months between forces of the pro-Western Kyiv
government and separatists who want union with Moscow has intensified since last
Friday, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each other for cross-border attacks and
little prospect of a ceasefire.

Vladyslav Seleznyov, spokesman for Kyiv’s “anti-terrorist operation” in the
east, said rebel fighters had attacked military posts in several different areas
overnight. “As a result of a Grad missile attack during the night, two Ukrainian
soldiers received fatal wounds,” he told Fifth Channel television.

Security council spokesman Lysenko said six Ukrainian soldiers in all had
died in the past day and 13 were wounded.

Municipal officials said at least four civilians had been killed in Snizhne,
20 kilometres from the border with Russia, in what separatist rebels said had
been an air strike by a Ukrainian warplane.

A separatist spokesman, quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency, said 10
people had been killed.

Government officials, however, that flights by Ukrainian warplanes had been
suspended since Monday when a Ukrainian Antonov An-26 transport plane, carrying
eight people, was downed in a rocket attack which Kyiv said may have come from
Russian territory.

Lysenko said two of the crew who survived appeared to have been taken
captive.

Ukraine has said there is now clear evidence of direct Russian involvement in
the fighting that intensified over the weekend with Ukrainian air strikes on
rebel positions.

Well over 200 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed as well as hundreds of
civilians and rebels since violence erupted in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east
following a pro-Europe revolt in Kyiv that ousted a Moscow-backed president in
February and led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, pressing the European Union to take a
harder line with Moscow possibly involving new tougher sanctions, said on Monday
that Russian military officers were now fighting alongside separatists and heavy
military equipment is pouring across the border from Russia.

Moscow has invited foreign military attaches to visit the Russian town hit by
fatal shelling on Sunday, an event for which it threatened “irreversible
consequences.” Ukraine denied that its armed forces were responsible for the
incident.

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