Ukraine Live Day 540: Russian-Backed Forces Continue Shelling With Grads And Heavy Artillery

Yaroslav Chepurnoy, press officer for the Ukrainian military headquarters in Mariupol, reports that heavy shelling continues today east of Volnovakha.

At 12:00 local time, Chepurnoy told 0629.com.ua that Ukrainian troops near Bogdanovka were under fire from 152 mm self-propelled guns. 

Since midnight, he said, five rounds of attacks have been recorded in the south of the Donetsk region, three of them near Bogdanovka.

Last night, Ukrainian sources reported heavy shelling near Starognatovka, where Russian-backed forces mounted a major assault yesterday morning.

Ukrainian troops repelled the attack and reportedly briefly entered the village of Novolaspa before withdrawing to new forward positions on heights overlooking the river Kalmius. This is the first Ukrainian territorial gain since February 10.

The Ukrainian military’s ATO Press Centre claimed this morning that Russian-backed forces conducted 95 attacks yesterday, with heavy fighting seen around Donetsk. The report also says that Ukrainian troops came under Grad MLRS fire in addition to the artillery reported by Chepurnoy. Grads were also reported to have been used against Troitskoye, in the Lugansk region, north-east of Debaltsevo.

UNIAN translates:

“From 18:00 Kyiv time to midnight on August 11, illegal armed groups continued to fire on ATO forces. The situation near the militant-controlled city of Donetsk was traditionally tense. From 22:00 to midnight, the occupiers fired 120mm mortars three times and 152mm artillery systems twice on our positions in the town of Avdeyevka. The militants used 152mm artillery systems three times to shell the village of Verkhnotoretskoye at about 20:00 Kyiv time and the village of Vodyanoye at about 22:00 Kyiv time,” the press center said.

At 22:15 Kyiv time on Monday, the Russian proxies fired Grad multiple rocket launchers on ATO forces in the village of Troitske in the Artemivsk sector. The village of Stanitsa Luganskaya in Lugansk region was under mortar and grenade fire from 22:00 to 02:00 local time.

“At about 21:00 Kyiv time, the enemy fired 120mm mortars and 152mm artillery systems on the village of Starognatovka near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Mariupol,” the report says.

After midnight, the Kremlin-backed mercenaries continued intensifying fire near the villages of Vodyanoye and Opytnoye, and the town of Avdeyevka. The ATO forces in the village of Bogdanovka not far from Mariupol came under Grad fire at 01:05 Kyiv time, at 03:00 Kyiv time twice and at 03:50 Kyiv time on Tuesday.

Novosti Donbassa reports that Ruslan Tkachuk, press officer for the military operation in the Lugansk region, announced this morning that two Ukrainian soldiers had been wounded there.

One combat medic was wounded when a defensive position near Krymskoye was shelled. They have been hospitalised in Severodonetsk with blast trauma.

On the south-eastern outskirts of Stanitsa Luganskaya, a serviceman in the Ukrainian air defence service received injuries to their neck and both legs when Russian-backed fighters on the southern bank of the Seversky Donets river fired on them with automatic grenade launchers, machine guns and mortars.

At noon today, Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, military spokesman for the Presidential Administration, told reporters that one Ukrainian soldier had been killed and 13 wounded over the last 24 hours.

— Pierre Vaux