Fighting has picked up again in the Donbas, with two Ukrainian servicemen being killed and 13 injured over the past 48 hours, the Ukrainian military reported on Oct. 29.
The flare-up in the Russian-instigated war against Ukraine follows a recent Berlin summit during which German Chancelor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the stalled peace process.
The leaders agreed to come up with a “roadmap” for peace by the end of next month, it was reported after the talks.
Meanwhile, the fighting in the east has continued: at least 55 attacks were launched by Russian-separatist forces within 24 hours in Donetsk Oblast’s Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Shyrokyne, and Vodyane. Kremlin-backed militants attacked Ukrainian positions using large-caliber machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars, Ukrainian authorities reported.
According to Ukraine’s State Border Service, Kremlin-backed fighters started shelling a checkpoint near Maryinka late on Oct. 28. There were no civilians at the checkpoint at that time as it had already been closed for crossing that day. Russian-backed forces opened fire on the checkpoint from the outskirts of the town of Aleksandrivka, and the shelling lasted for around three hours, officials reported.
The ceasefire was also violated in Luhansk Oblast, including at Novooleksandrivka, where separatists used grenade launchers. Stanytsia Luhanska and a village of Krymske also remain hot spots.
Earlier, international monitors with the Organization for Security and Co-operation reported an increase in ceasefire violations in Donetsk Oblast, including almost 800 explosions, mostly in Horlivka some 39km north-east of Donetsk, in Avdiivka-Yasynuvata, and in Svitlodarsk, as well as in areas east and north-east of the coastal city of Mariupol.
The death toll from Russia’s war in Ukraine has already reached 9,578 people, more than 2,000 of whom were civilians, and 22,236 people were wounded, the United Nations estimates. This number includes Ukrainian servicemen, civilians and members of the Kremlin-backed armed groups. More than 1.7 million people have been uprooted as a result of the continuous fighting in the east of the country.
There are at least 35,000 Russian-backed fighters and some 6,000 regular Russian troops present in eastern Ukraine, Vadym Skibytskyy, the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate with Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, told journalists on Oct. 28.
