Ukraine Day 1144: LIVE UPDATES BELOW. 3 Ukrainin soldiers were wounded in battle and one civilian was injured in Avdeyevka from Russia-backed shelling.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
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An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlinâs Dirty War in Ukraine
Mass call-up of the reserves in the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” in Torez. Photo via @GirkinGirkin
Another civilian, age 45 was injured today, April 6 in Avdeyevka (Avdiivka) when a shell launched by Russia-backed forces landed in his yard on Sobornays St, Levy Bereg reported, citing the Facebook page of Pavlo Zhebrivsky, head of the Donetsk Region Military and Civilian Administration.
In its evening dispatch, the ATO reported just 14 attacks during the day, which is an improvement over previous days.
The DNR claimed that Ukraine had moved 120-mm artillery to the Mariupol and Debaltsevo fronts, to Novognatovka (7 km from the line of contact, near Volnovakha) and Novoluganskoye and Bogdanovka (3-4 km from the line of contact near Volnovakha and Debaltsevo, respectively)
Translation: Putin’s humanitarian aid.
o Dock Workers Demonstrate in Mariupol
A group of dock workers in an independent trade union organized a rally today and drove away other port employees, 0629.com.ua, the Mariupol city site reported.
Port boss Oleksandr Oleynik came to the rally and denied that the workers were not getting enough orders, citing figures for freight which were contested by others. He said “chaos will not pass” and that ways would be sought to address their problems, but “we must go through the hard times together”.
Ninety-percent of the freight comes from the Azovstal plant owned by Metinvest, the company of Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who has lost some of his plants and coal mines since the “nationalization” of them by the DNR following a boycott of the Donbass instituted by Kiev last month.
Other freight cannot reach the port now evidently due to the separatists’ seizure of plants. The coal terminal is standing empty.
o Ukrainian ‘Saboteur’ Defendant Pleads Guilty
Redvan Suleymanov, one of the defendants in the “Crimean Saboteurs” case has plead guilty, Lb.ua reports. But he denied that he caused great damage.
o DNR Turns Out Largest Mobilization of Reserves in Its History
The turn-out of the DNR reservists is yet another troubling sign that has caused some analysts to speculate that Russia may be readying another invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Army has deployed the 1st Guards Tank Army, the 40th Army, and the 8th Army all around Ukraine’s borders. Stephen Blank, previously at the US Army War College and now at the American Foreign Police Council, writes for the Atlantic Council:
More recent deployments are even more ominous. On March 8, Moscow announced that the Russian Navy would prioritize ships capable of carrying troops that can perform amphibious operations, which could easily be used against Ukraine, the Balkans, the Caucasus, or in the Middle East. On the weekend of March 24, observers recorded dozens of tanks deploying at Pokrovskoye in the southern Rostov-On-the Don region near Ukraine. At the same time, Russia deployed airborne forces (VDV) to Belarus, making it impossible for Ukraine to reroute forces from its north to its threatened southern frontier around Mariupol. And those VDV forces also clearly threaten an invasion of Belarus.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
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