Ukraine Day 1010: LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
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An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
One Ukrainian soldier was killed and three wounded in the Donbass yesterday as Kiev reports 25 attacks by Russia-backed forces.
The casualties were announced by Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Andriy Lysenko at a briefing today.
Details have emerged on two of the casualties.
According to the Lugansk Regional Administration, one Ukrainian soldier was wounded in a clash near Schastye, northwest of the separatist-held regional capital.
In the Donetsk region, police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin reported that a veteran Ukrainian military intelligence officer, known as Pauk (spider), is in a critical condition after being wounded in a skirmish with Russia-backed fighters near Mariupol.
The Ukrainian military’s ATO Press Center reported this morning that the heaviest shelling had again been seen to the south and west of Donetsk.
According to the report, the villages of Shirokino, Vodanoye and Talakovka, near Mariupol, in addition to Taramchuk, near the Donetsk-Mariupol highway, Krasnogorovka and Maryinka, west of Donetsk, were all shelled with mortars. Grad-P single-fire, 122 mm rockets were also reportedly used against Krasnogorovka.
Shelling reportedly continued in Krasngorovka this morning:
Translation: #Krasnogorovoka . Between houses 3 and 13 on Vostochnaya Street. Today at around 7 am.
Furthermore, Colonel Lysenko reported that Russia-backed forces had attempted to assault Vodyanoye, which lies less than eight kilometres from the edge of Mariupol:
To the north of Donetsk and Gorlovka, the military reported mortar, grenade-launcher and small-arms attacks.
In the Lugansk region, the Administration reported that Russia-backed forces had used 120 and 82 mm mortars, automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns in attacks near the villages of Novozvanovka and Novoaleksandrova, in the west of the region.
Meanwhile, the Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk have accused Ukrainian forces of firing 170 mortar or artillery shells yesterday, attacking the outskirts of Donetsk and Gorlovka, as well as settlements near the Donetsk-Mariupol highway and the villages of Sakhanka and Leninskoye, near the coast.
This afternoon, there are emerging reports on social media of a massive explosion heard in Donetsk:
Translation: I felt a blast wave at home. Something f*cked up? #Donetsk