Ukraine Day 984: 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
According to a briefing from Andriy Lysenko, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman for Anti-Terrorist Operations [ATO] Affairs, one Ukrainian soldier has been killed in battle and 6 wounded in action as fighting does not subside in eastern Ukraine, Pravda.ua reported.
Lysenko said the soldier was killed in shelling in Pavlopol northeast of Mariupol, where another soldier was wounded; 3 soldiers were wounded in Zaytsevo; Opytnoye, north of Donetsk; and Shirokino near Mariupol, respectively; and two more were injured in Avdeyevka where Ukrainian forces repelled an attack from Russian-backed separatists.
According to a report on the ATO’s Facebook page, Russia-backed militants attacked 54 times using 152-mm and 120-mm artillery against Avdeyevka northwest of Donetsk and Vodyanoye east of Mariupol, TV 112 reported. On the Donetsk-Mariupol highway, 82-mm and 120-mm mortars were used near Taramchuk, Slavnoye and Novotroitskoye, and also near Pavlopol; machine guns and small arms were fired on Granitnoye and Talakovka.
There were also attacks on Ukrainian positions in Maryinka, Krasnogorovka and Shirikono from BMPs, mortar-launchers, grenade-launchers and machine gun.
There was also firing on Zaytsevo, Opytnoye, Mayorsk and the Butovka Mine using machine-guns, grenade-launchers, mortar-launchers of various calibers and 152-mm artillery.
According to Novosti Donbassa citing DAN, the separatist news service, Eduard Basurin, the self-styled “defense minister” of the self-declared “Donetsk People’s Republic” reported that 2 civilians killed and 3 wounded were wounded yesterday, October 27, including an adult male killed in shelling whose 6-year-old daughter suffered a shrapnel wind to the head and was hospitalized. She was operated on and is currently stabilized and listed in fair condition.
Novosti Donbassa posted from social media photos of homes reported damaged in shelling in Makeyevka, including near the K-7 market, the Elbrus store, the area near School No. 32 and also homes on Geroyev Stalingrada and Kokkinaki Streets and Gazetny Avenue and Ilyich Lane. VKontakte users reported that a gas pipe had exploded in a home near the K-7 market.
Ruptly reported October 27 that there were 7 wounded in the same shelling incident in Makeyevka (Makiivka).
The Ukrainian ATO claimed that the allegations of Ukrainian shelling of Makeyevka were a “provocation” in order to frame them for the attacks on civilians, Pravda.ua reported, citing the ATO’s Facebook page:
“For the purpose of concealing their aggressive actions, the occupiers have committed the latest war cimre, also having shelled from artillery residential areas in the city of Makeyevbka controlled by them. The firing came from enemy positions outfitted in the area of the villages of Mineralnoye, Yakovlevka, and Ysinovataya.
This barbaric action of the occupiers had the purpose of discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the eyes of the international community and local population, to hide violations of the Minsk accords by the enemy and intimidate civilians in the occupied territories.”
There was no independent analysis available yet of the direction of the shelling and which side might be responsible.
But OSCE Special Monitoring Mission told Ukrainska Pravda that they were aware of the shelling of Makeyevka and were investigating.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick