Ceasefire on fire: Russian-backed separatists shell Ukraine’s positions 112 times in past 24 hours
A Kyiv military source said four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in Debaltseve, a strategic railway junction town that has been the focus of most of the fighting in recent weeks, reuters.com reports.
A government-held town in east Ukraine sandwiched between two rebel-controlled areas came under heavy shelling on Monday, a day after the start of a ceasefire that Russian-backed separatists say does not apply there.
A Reuters correspondent at Vuhlehirsk, about 10 km (6 miles) to the west, heard heavy shelling, with blasts around every 10 seconds.
“The gunmen resumed shelling of residential buildings and infrastructure in Debaltseve. At 8.00, the town police station was hit directly with a projectile. The building was devastated. There were no wounded and killed among police. Police continue to serve,” Vyacheslav Abroskin, the chief of Donetsk regional police, reported the news on his Facebook page on Monday morning.
The ceasefire was negotiated at a summit of leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in Belarus last week in an attempt to end 10 months of conflict in eastern Ukraine in which more than 5,000 people have been killed.
Although fighting elsewhere ceased in the first minutes of Sunday after the ceasefire came into force, it has continued, or even escalated in Vuhlehirsk, military spokesman Anatoly Stelmakh told reporters.
“The illegal armed groups are not supporting the ceasefire,” he said, adding the rebels were using Grad rockets and tanks to attack government forces holding the town. “The number of attacks on Debaltseve has even increased in comparison to previous days and they are using all types of weapons,” Stelmakh said stressing that the Ukrainian forces were “only responding to attacks”.. “The terrorists have been given the order to take Debaltseve at all cost.”
In all, government positions had been fired on 112 times by rebels in the past 24 hours, with government forces firing only when they came under attack, Stelmakh said.
In Debaltseve pro-Russian militants warned that the truce “does not apply.”
Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said his forces would continue their offensive in Debaltseve. “We will ceasefire with the exclusion of internal areas, that is to say Debaltseve,” he said. “There is not a single word about Debaltseve in the Minsk agreement.”
