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- READ OUR SPECIAL REPORT: An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
UNIAN reports, citing RFE/RL’s Crimean Service, that Mustafa Dzhemilev, former leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and the Ukrainian presidential envoy for Crimean Tatar affairs, has said that Russia should release political prisoners before power is restored to the occupied Crimean peninsular.
According to Dzhemilev, Kiev still intends to restore power supplies, which were cut when pylons in the Ukrainian Kherson region were blown up on Friday night, because of fines faced for non-supply.
But Dzhemilev and fellow activists oppose the resumption of power supplies unless Russia makes reciprocal steps to alleviate the situation in occupied Crimea:
“They should make some reciprocal steps. First of all, they must release Ahtem Chiygoz, [and other] key figures. But they do nothing like that. That’s why they face such public pressure. Why should we switch on the light for them?” Dzhemilev said.
— Pierre Vaux
The Ukrainian military reports two soldiers wounded and 45 attacks over the last 24 hours.
22 of the reported attacks took place between 18:00 yesterday evening and 6:00 today.
Meanwhile the ‘defence ministry’ of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) claimed that Ukrainian forces had violated the ceasefire 8 times over the last 24 hours.
While the DNR accused Ukraine of using heavy mortars to shell the outskirts of Donetsk and Gorlovka, they denied claims made by the Ukrainian military last night that Gorlovka had been bombarded with Grad rockets.
According to yesterday’s claims, Russian-backed fighters had fired the Grads from the Donetsk area onto separatist-held territory in order to stage a provocation.
Last night, according to the Ukrainian military’s ATO Press Centre, Russian-backed fighters fired towards Verknetoretskoye, Avdeyevka, Peski and Opytnoye, all north of Donetsk, with grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms.
Ukrainian positions in Avdeyevka were directly targeted with RPGs, automatic grenade launchers and small arms.
In the Gorlovka area, the Ukrainian-held settlements of Luganskoye and Mayorsk came under fire.
Ukrainian military analyst Dmytro Tymchuk claimed that there had also been repeated attacks in the Lugansk region, near the village of Sizoye, east of Lugansk city.
According to Tymchuk, Russian-backed fighters opened fire with three or four 82 mm mortars on Ukrainian positions southeast of Bolotennoye to draw their attention.
“Following this, two groups of 15-20 men, operating from the direction of Khryashchevka and Beregovoye, attempted, under cover of fire from several AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers at once, to come within small-arms range of Ukrainian army positions and break through between Sizoye and Bolotennoye.”
According to Tymchuk, the attack was repelled by massed small-arms fire from Ukrainian troops, forcing the Russian-backed fighters to retreat after a 30-minute shoot-out.
It was in this same area that the Lugansk police reported todaythat a civilian woman was wounded by a mine.
According to the police, the 40-year-old set off a tripwire yesterday in woods near Bolotennoye. She received blast injuries to her lower extremities and has been hospitalised.
The Donetsk Regional Administration reports meanwhile that two civilians were wounded over the last 24 hours.
According to the administration, both received gunshot wounds.
— Pierre Vaux