All the past week, the situation on the front line in Donbass was deteriorating. Especially the situation in the south, Mariupol segment of the DPR front where Kiev had recently been delivering a major amount of weapons.
The daily number of attacks in the DPR ranged from 300 to 600, almost reaching the level that had been recorded in the Republic before the latest ceasefire. The bombardments were mainly carried out with heavy mortars, but in the south of the DPR, at the beginning of the week Kiev already began to use heavy artillery.
The sharp increase in the intensity of the shelling in the south of the DPR resulted in casualties among the civilian population. During the first three days of the week, a woman born in 1945 died from her injuries, while her husband ended up in hospital with a heart attack. There were also wounded four other civilians, including two women, one of them injured in her own home.
In addition, as a result of the Ukrainian attacks, five houses were damaged, and one completely destroyed. However, according to the authorities of the Republic, due to a sharp increase in the intensity of the shelling, the OSCE observers categorically refused to come to the sites of attacks to document their consequences.
The DPR army lost in the shelling two men killed, one wounded and one more captured by a Ukrainian subversive group.
Moreover, the Ukrainian military shelled with heavy artillery windmills in the south of the Republic, which feed the Novoazovsky region of the DPR and Kiev-controlled Mariupol. In light of the absence of the DPR army positions in the area, the sole purpose of these attacks was depriving civilians of light and heat in anticipation of the coming cold weather, which gave the authorities of the Republic the right to call them an act of terrorism.
However, in the second half of the week, the incessant shelling of the southern localities of the DPR tuned out to be a cover for attempts to break through the military defense of the Republican army. The first of these attempts occurred on the night of October 13 and was carried out exclusively by the nationalist battalion «Azov» and the Polish and Georgian mercenaries.
The attack was repelled, with the Ukrainian side having lost 15 soldiers killed and at least 30 wounded. A large number of the wounded on the Ukrainian side was confirmed by the fact that Kiev mobilized two helicopters and seven civilian ambulances to evacuate them. In addition, during the battle, there were destroyed three Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicles which had advanced to the contact line to provide the fire support to the attackers.
On the DPR side, two soldiers were killed and five wounded.
The next night, Kiev repeated a breakthrough attempt in the same area, which was also repelled. The third attempt took place on the same day, 14 October, in the evening, and Kiev lost in it over 10 soldiers killed, another infantry fighting vehicles and a «Ural» truck with ammunition.
In reflecting the last attack, the DPR army lost three soldiers killed and another three wounded.
Each time before the attack, the Ukrainian military shelled the area of the alleged attack and nearby localities with 122 and 152mm artillery.
It is worth noting that at the end of the previous week, several days before the aggravation of the situation in the south of the DPR, this section of the front was inspected by the military attache at the US Embassy in Ukraine, Colonel Paul Schmidt.
In addition, Kiev also shelled, as a diversionary strike, the central segment of the front, the outskirts of Donetsk and Yasinovataya located north of the DPR capital, with heavy mortars and artillery, as well as tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
In total, over the past week, according to the DPR Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the territory of the Republic more than 2,000 times, and over 1,500 attacks were carried out with weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements.
Kiev opened fire on the 31 localities of the Republic, in seven of which, according to the local authorities, the shelling resulted in about 40 houses completely or partially destroyed, with their owners left without a shelter in the coming winter.
The DPR army lost over the week, during the shelling and repelling the Ukrainian attacks, 8 soldiers killed and 12 wounded.
The number of attacks on the territory of the LPR from the Ukrainian positions also increased. The LPR People's Militia command informed that, during the week, Kiev opened fire over 30 times, having launched on the positions of the Republican army about 250 artillery and mortar shells.
In addition, last week, near Stanitsa Luganskaya located north of the capital of the LPR, where on October 1st, the agreed separation of forces and means did not take place, the Ukrainian side disrupted the withdrawal of troops four more times. Each time there were either no explanations from Kiev at all, or they used as a pretext the worsening of the situation on the front line, provoked by themselves.
Moreover, according to the LPR intelligence, it is in this area where the Ukrainian military were strengthening their positions with concrete blocks all the week.
During the past week, the Ukrainian side refused the OSCE observers the access to their positions three times. Moreover, in one segment of the front, the Ukrainian military explained their refusal by the fact that the area was mined. Apparently, Kiev uses this as an excuse to not allow the OSCE representatives to document the strengthening of their positions and delivery of new weapons to the front line.
A major part of these weapons comes to the Ukrainian positions from the storage sites of weapons and equipment prohibited by the Minsk Agreements. Only in the Donetsk segment of the front, the OSCE observers documented the withdrawal from the storage sites of over 100 units of 122 and 152mm artillery, over 30 MLRS «Grad», 65 anti-tank cannons, about 50 tanks and 10 anti-aircraft missile systems.
According to the DPR intelligence, the principal amount of weapons continues to arrive at the Ukrainian positions in the south, Mariupol direction, including two tank companies, 6 artillery batteries and 4 anti-aircraft missile systems «Buk». Last week, Kiev also delivered 2 batteries of MLRS «Grad» to the north, Gorlovka direction.
In the Lugansk segment of the front, the LPR intelligence and the OSCE observers also found over 20 MLRS «Grad» and 5 train carriages with ammunition for them, about 50 artillery cannons, as well as about 50 infantry fighting vehicles, about 10 armored personnel carriers and over 20 tanks and 5 «Ural» trucks with ammunition for them.
In addition, the LPR military authorities reported hundreds of mercenaries, located on the Ukrainian positions in the Lugansk segment of the front. Last week, the intelligence of the Republic reported the arrival of a new group of Polish mercenaries, as well as another group of black soldiers communicating in English. On the territory controlled by Ukraine, there were found four camps, in which foreign instructors are teaching the Ukrainian military tactics of sabotage and intelligence activities, as well as combat skills in urban areas during cleansing operations of the local population.
There are already no doubt that this is how Kiev sees the development of the situation in Donbass. On October 14, in Kiev, there was created, on the basis of the nationalist regiment «Azov», a new party whose program includes the complete denial of the Minsk Agreements, return of Donbass and the Crimea by force, followed by the establishment of ‘the reign of the white man, under the leadership of the Ukrainian nation, from the Carpathian Mountains to Vladivostok’.
Several days ago, the President of Ukraine Poroshenko said that he sees no prospects for the implementation of the political part of the Minsk Agreements without the preliminary transfer of the control over the border with Russia, to Ukraine.
In addition, he publicly announced the dispatch of new weapons, including combat aircraft, to the ATO area.
On the basis of the situation on the front line and clearly aggressive intentions of the Ukrainian side, the LPR authorities stated that they are forced to revise plans for the preparation of the LPR army units, focusing on offensive and counter-offensive. The DPR authorities made a similar statement a week earlier.
UPD
On October 16, 2016, in Donetsk, in a lift of his own house, there was killed the legendary commander of the DPR army, Arsen Pavlov, better known as Motorola. The attempt was made with an explosive device, powered remotely.
Commenting on the murder of the Hero of the DPR, the Head of the Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko said that, by this attempt, Kiev had finally destroyed the Minsk Agreements.
- Ukraine-Controlled Localities Bombed by Kiev - Ukrainian Local Councils Seized by Nationalists - Memory of Killed Children of Donbass Shot by Ukrainian Military
- Mariupol Rescue Fund Creation in DPR - A Call to Ukrainians to Sever Ties with Russia - Nazis' Threat of «Night of Long Knives» for Opposition
- Nazis’ Provocation in Avdeevka - Ban on Russian Social Networks in Ukraine - Ukrainian Laws on Elimination of Moscow Patriarchate Church