The most tense situation remains in the south of the DPR where the Ukrainian side attacks daily with artillery, tanks and heavy mortars. Moreover, according to the Defense Ministry of the Republic, over the past week the fire from the Ukrainian positions was not opened only at night but during the day as well.
In a single day, over 70 artillery shells were launched on two villages located to the south of Donetsk, and more than 30 rounds were made on them from tanks. As a result of the shelling, a civilians was wounded, 30 houses were partially or completely destroyed and a power supply system damaged.
Six localities still remain without electricity and heat. Repair crews can not begin works on the restoration of the power lines, because the moment they appear, the Ukrainian side immediately opens mortar fire. The daily average temperature in Donbass is about 5-6 degrees.
One of the outskirts of Donetsk is also under continuous fire of the Ukrainian artillery. Over the past two days, there was wounded a civilian born in 1952 and 7 houses and power lines were damaged, which resulted in 30 houses also left without electricity and heat. The residents of the locality spend almost all the time in basements because of the Ukrainian snipers, who, according to the civilians, conduct aimed fire on the locals.
In total, over the past week, according to the military authorities of the DPR, the Ukrainian side opened fire in the Donetsk segment of the front about 4,000 times, and over 3,000 attacks were made with artillery, tanks and heavy mortars.
The Ukrainian heavy weapons fire hit 25 localities, in which, according to the local authorities, more than 60 houses were damaged. In addition, the bombardments resulted in 3 civilians wounded.
At the same time, the OSCE observers noted in their weekly report that from the sites of storage of the Ukrainian weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements, there were withdrawn over 150 pieces of armored vehicles and heavy weapons, which Kiev allegedly has delivered to the front line.
According to the DPR intelligence, last week, to the southern segment of the Donetsk front, Kiev delivered mostly motorized and towed artillery, at the central segment arrived armored vehicles, and to the north Kiev sent tanks, howitzers and a «Grad» division.
In addition, the previous week, the DPR intelligence reported the arrival of 7 SU-25 attack aircraft of the Ukrainian army at the rear airfield. Two days ago, in the southern, Mariupol direction, local residents of the Kiev-controlled territory reported a fighter having flown over their homes at an extremely low altitude.
The spokesman of the ATO headquarters indirectly admitted that the aircraft belonged to the AFU, saying that it was ‘neither Russian nor the DPR plane’, but refused to comment on the purpose of its mission in the area closed, according to the Minsk Agreements, to aviation.
Kiev also continues sabotage and terrorist activities both in the front area and on the territory of the Republics.
Early last week, to the south of Donetsk, soldiers of the DPR army detained a Ukrainian subversive group heading to the capital of the Republic. Saboteurs were dressed in civilian clothes and had passports with a residence permit in the Donetsk region.
The next day, in the center of Donetsk, two explosive devices were powered, which resulted, fortunately, in no victims.
Three days ago, a group of fans of the Lugansk football club was detained in Lugansk, the members of which, according to investigators, were in contact with the radical Nazis of the «Azov» and preparing terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the LPR capital. According to one of the detained leaders of the group, they had receive remuneration from the Ukrainian security services.
In the Lugansk segment of the front, soldiers of the LPR army reported Ukrainian mobile mortar crews traveling along the contact line in civilian transport, including ambulances.
At the same time, the Ukrainian army is rapidly losing its combat capability due to mass drunkenness and persistent conflicts between regular units and nationalist battalions.
The intelligence of the Republics almost daily reports of such clashes which are also evidenced by reports from residents of the Kiev-controlled territories. Only over the last week, non-combat losses in the Ukrainian army amounted to over 100 men.
In October 2016, the President of Ukraine, Poroshenko signed a decree, according to which the demobilization of the Ukrainian military who had already served their term, was postponed ‘until a further notice’. The Ukrainian military responded with desertion. According to the Military Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, in early November 2016, there were over 5,000 deserters at large.
As a result, the number of foreign mercenaries on the Ukrainian positions is increasing.
Earlier this week, the DPR intelligence reported the arrival in the Donetsk area of 6 buses with Polish and Georgian mercenaries, with one group accommodated in a children's recreation center, and another in a school.
In the north of the Republic, arrived a subversive group «Georgian company».
In the LPR, near Stanitsa Luganskaya, where was to take place the withdrawal of troops of the sides to the conflict, early last week, according to the LPR intelligence, arrived about 100 Polish mercenaries and an unidentified unit, 30 members of which were dressed in NATO uniform.
In the mid-week, in the same area arrived another group of about 2,000 mercenaries dressed in identical black uniforms without insignia, with some of them, according to local residents, communicating in Arabic.
Kiev also massively delivers radical nationalists to the front line in Donbass. However, their purpose is, rather, to terrorize locals in the frontline areas, who had repeatedly come out to protest against the deployment of military equipment near their homes and the arbitrary of the nationalists.
In one of such localities of the Donetsk region, where about 70% of the population are women, local residents reported that, after the arrival of about 100 radicals of the «Right Sector», the nationalists chased them out of their homes into streets and, under a threat of execution, forced them to shout nationalist slogans. At the same time, they took artillery cannons to the central street and made occasional rounds from them.
In another locality in the Lugansk region, the locals held a spontaneous protest after radicals of the «Right Sector» had severely beaten a local driver. The protesters were unable to get any response either from the local authorities, or from the command of the Ukrainian military. After the rally, the radicals beat another three local residents.
In the locality of Popasnaya, from which the Ukrainian military daily shell the town of Pervomaysk situated on the territory of the LPR, there was also held a rally against the presence of military equipment in the locality. In response, the Ukrainian military opened fire with small arms over the heads of the protesters, and a tank made a blank round in their direction.
The LPR authorities also believe that the nationalists can be delivered to the area of Stanitsa Luganskaya in order to carry out subversive activities in the neutral zone if the separation of forces and means of the sides to the conflict takes place after all.
Last week, however, the withdrawal of troops near Stanitsa Luganskaya was again foiled by the Ukrainian side, and again without any explanation. The next day, the Ukrainian military shelled, with mortars and infantry fighting vehicles, the previously damaged bridge at the single at the Lugansk front checkpoint where civilians can cross the contact line. One of the main conditions for the start of repair works on the bridge was a strict adherence to the «regime of silence» in the area.
The day before, on the Ukrainian side of the same checkpoint, a woman born in 1949 died because, when she fainted, the Ukrainian military refused to let an ambulance through the checkpoint.
At the end of the week, the Chief of the LPR People's Militia command said that Kiev refuses to withdraw its troops from Stanitsa Luganskaya as it fears that the residents of the locality are ready to raise ‘the LPT flag over the local administration building and petition to be taken under the jurisdiction of the Republic’.
Early last week, the LPR army conducted regular exercises, during which an offensive was worked out, with the aim of reaching the administrative borders of the Lugansk region.
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