Ukraine Live Day 578: 2 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed And At Least 5 Wounded

September 18, 2015
Soldiers of the 'Republican Guard' of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic on parade in Donetsk today. Photo: Tatyana Karalyova

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Little Fighting, But 2 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed And At Least 5 Wounded

Ukrainska Pravda reports that Colonel Andriy Lysenko, military spokesman for the Presidential Administration, has announced that two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and five wounded over the last 24 hours.

Lysenko said (translated by The Interpreter):

“Yesterday two groups of our soldiers were blown up by explosive devices. This took place close to the Mayorsk railway station, which is outside Gorlovka, and also near the village of Starognatovka in the Volnovakha district of the Donetsk region. As a result of the blasts, two of our soldiers were killed and another five were wounded.”

In the Donetsk region, the ATO Press Centre claimed this morning that there had been only one attack by Russian-backed forces yesterday.

According to the report, a Ukrainian defensive position near Lozovoye, east of Gorlovka, came under small-arms fire at around 22:00.

Ruslan Tkachuk, spokesman for the military operation in the Lugansk region, reported this morning that a Ukrainian soldier was wounded during an attack yesterday in the village of Valuyskoye, near Stanitsa Luganskaya.

The soldier was driving a fuel tanker when he was fired-on with a GP-25 grenade launcher. As a result of the blast, the soldier, born in 1985 in the Kharkiv region, was hospitalised with blast trauma and numerous shrapnel wounds to his lower extremities.

— Pierre Vaux