Ukraine Authorities, Separatists Claim Control of Donetsk Airport
KYIV – Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian separatists each claimed to be in control of Donetsk airport on Thursday, as clashes resumed in the breakaway eastern Ukraine.
Insurgent militias launched an attack on the airport Thursday morning after shelling it with artillery and mortar fire through the night.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Andrei Lysenko, announced that as of 13:08 local time (10:08 GMT) Donetsk airport was totally controlled by the Ukrainian military.
But Andrei Purguin, deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the active phase of the separatists’ assault was complete and the insurgent forces were engaged in “mopping up” operations.
Purguin later admitted that the separatists’ militias will control the airport only when Ukrainian defenders are forced to retreat at least 15 kilometers (9 miles) away.
Donetsk airport is a city within the city, he added, and consists of numerous terminals, arrival halls and underground shelters dating from the Soviet era that give Ukrainian forces a chance to hide and perform “acts of sabotage.”
Vladislav Selenznev, a spokesman for the Kyiv government forces, told the Ukrainian daily Ukraina Pravda that the militia began the assault on the airport before dawn, with light weapons.
A short time earlier, he said, the separatists had launched four attacks on Ukrainian positions within the airport complex and managed to seize control of one of its two passenger terminals. However, Selenznev insisted that the insurgents were subsequently forced to retreat.
Since May, Donetsk’s international airport has been the scene of ongoing clashes between the pro-Russian militias that are besieging it and Ukrainian troops defending it. Fighting continues despite the cease-fire deal both sides signed a month ago in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
In related development, the Bloomberg network quoted a German government source as saying the European Union would consider imposing new sanctions on Russia if the insurgents overrun the airports of Donetsk or Mariupol, the second largest city in the Donetsk region, which is still controlled by Ukrainian forces.