While a new round of the four-way talks on ceasefire agreement implementation in Ukraine is underway in Berlin, more shelling and military provocations on behalf of Kremlin-backed insurgents is observed in eastern part of the country.
“Aside from small arms, terrorists are using tanks and artillery,” Andriy Lysenko, spokesman of the anti-terrorist operation headquarters, said at a briefing on Jan. 5. “Ukrainian servicemen do not respond to provocations. But when there is a threat to their life, terrorists will get an adequate response.”
Ukrainian army experienced no losses within the last 24 hours and only one soldier was wounded, but the situation remains tense in the direction of eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol, Lysenko said.
The overall situation in eastern Ukraine is also far from acceptable. At least 4,771 civilians were killed in nine months of the conflict, including the passengers of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and 10,360 civilians were wounded in the last eight months, according to the United Nations Human Rights report released in the end of 2014. Some 593,609 fled the country and 610,413 have been internally displaced.
On Jan.5 Ukrainian servicemen received new equipment. Several tanks and fighter jets, as well as grenade launchers, were delivered to the military base in Zhytomyr. President Petro Poroshenko who arrived to the base to witness the equipment transfer said that “the fighting capacity of Ukrainian forces is now restored.”
“While active military actions are taking place on our territory, we have fully restored fighting capacity of military units. As of Sept. 5 we had only 20 percent of the required military hardware. Today the armymen are 100 percent equipped and are prepared to defend themselves,” Poroshenko was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Now the army is equipped with the systems of counter-battery and counter-mortar operations, as well as new sniper rifles.
“Ukrainian servicemen are well-trained today, and the effectiveness of their actions has seriously improved. This is how we are taking advantage of this so-called ceasefire,” Poroshenko said.
He believes that diplomatic efforts will also help to restore peace in Ukraine.
“It will become the central topic of the Normandy format summit involving the leaders of Germany and France if we manage to agree a draft document. It will be the main topic of a Geneva format meeting involving the leaders of the European Union and the U.S. if we prove able to prepare it,” he said.
Ukraine is represented today in Berlin by Oleksiy Makeyev, head of department for politics and communications of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Together with representatives from foreign ministries of Russia, France and Germany he is expected to negotiate implementation of the ceasefire agreement and Ukraine summit in Astana on Jan. 15.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
