Ukraine troops take rebel stronghold
After days of constant street battles, Ukrainian troops have taken control of a large part of the rebel stronghold in Luhansk, while battles around the rebel’s largest city of Donetsk left at least 43 people dead.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council, told reporters on Wednesday that government forces are now controlling ‘significant parts’ of Luhansk, an eastern city just 20km from the Russian border.
Luhansk has been without electricity, running water or phone connections for 18 days due to the fighting between government forces and pro-Russia separatists.
Russia has sent a massive aid convoy to help the residents there but it is still stuck at the border, since it has not yet received Kyiv’s approval to proceed.
Ukrainian troops are trying to encircle Donetsk, the largest city still in rebel hands, and drive the rebels out of Luhansk.
Several neighbourhoods in Donetsk have been hit with artillery fire in the last few days and fighting on the city’s outskirts has become more intense.
The Kyiv-backed administration in Donetsk said on Wednesday that 34 local residents had been killed and 29 wounded in the last 24 hours.
Lysenko said nine troops were killed and 22 wounded in overnight fighting in Ilovaysk, a town near Donetsk, as the government sought to retake a major railroad and a highway that leads to Russia.
The Kyiv government also is pursuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, which the United Nations says has killed more than 2000 people and displaced over 340,000 since the fighting began in mid-April.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will host German Chancellor Angela Merkel this weekend in Kyiv before meeting next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.