Last week, the intensity of the shelling of the People's Republic of Donbass reached again the level of August 2016. According to the DPR Defense Ministry, in a week Kiev opened fire on the territory of the Republic over 11,000 times, with nearly 4,000 rounds made from the MLRS, artillery, heavy mortars and tanks.
The military leadership of the LPR also reported an increasing in half in the number of attacks, compared with the previous week.
The fire from the Ukrainian positions was opened on 24 localities of the DPR, with one of which shelled, just in one day, 1 December, with about 40 MLRS «Grad» missiles.
As a result of the shelling, five civilians were wounded. One of them, a member of a repair crew, was wounded in the chest by a Ukrainian sniper, when the crew came to repair power lines damaged in a previous bombardment. The day before, the DPR had made an agreement the Ukrainian side on a cease-fire in this sector during the work of the crew. The wounded repairman was taken to hospital, where he died on the operating table.
There were also damaged over 60 homes along the entire front line, one of which, a multi-store apartment house in a locality north of Donetsk, burned to the ground.
In total, in November 2016, according to the military authorities of the Republic, the Ukrainian side opened fire on the territory of the DPR over 28,000 times.
In addition, in the south of the Republic, the Ukrainian side carried out two attempts to break through the defense of the DPR army. Both attempts were repelled, with the Ukrainian attacking groups having lost 9 soldiers killed and 16 wounded.
In total, in November, the Ukrainian military carried out 14 provocative attacks on the positions of the DPR army, having lost 25 men killed and 3 armored vehicles destroyed.
The DPR army losses amounted last week to one soldier killed and another wounded.
In the Lugansk segment of the front, early last week, a Ukrainian subversive group also tried to circumvent the positions of the LPR army and enter the territory of the Republic. The group was completely destroyed in the clash, in which the LPR army lost one soldier wounded.
With every attempt to break through rebuffed, the Ukrainian side turned to the tactics of «scorched land» on the territory of the Republics. The local authorities of the localities along the entire front lines report the targeted shelling on the vital infrastructure of the Republics.
The Donetsk filter plant was subjected to shelling for several days, which resulted in the water supply discontinued to Donetsk and a number of towns in the surrounding area, including those on the Kiev-controlled territory.
The Ukrainian side also opened aimed fire on a water intake station to the south of the Republic.
In the north of the DPR, the Ukrainian military opened fire on power lines right after the latter had been repaired after the previous attack. Two of the five wounded civilians received bullet wounds during the repair work.
As a result, three localities in the south of the DPR remained for a week without electricity and, therefore, without heat in freezing weather conditions.
Kiev also deliberately destroys the housing of the Republics.
In the LPR, last week, the Ukrainian military hit with mortar fire a village where had never been any positions of the army of the Republic. As a result, there were damaged houses, power lines, a substation, and also injured and killed domestic animals which are for many families the only source of food.
In a village north of Donetsk, the DPR authorities were forced to evacuate the local residents because of the incessant shelling. The next day, the Ukrainian army shelled the abandoned houses so that their owners had nowhere to return.
In Kiev-controlled areas, the Ukrainian military evict en mass local residents from their homes to accommodate there their units, since the military facilities, due to the Defense Ministry of Ukraine refusing to pay their bills, are no longer supplied with electricity.
In Stanitsa Luganskaya, located north of the capital of the LPR, arrived two battalions of the National Guard of Ukraine, whose main task, according to the local residents, is systematic verification checks of homes and eviction small families from them.
Three days ago, Kiev completely stopped the flow of water to Lugansk and the surrounding localities under the pretext of non-payment for water supply.
Moreover, last week, in one of the localities, in which the Ukrainian army units are placed, arrived a group of Ukrainian volunteers, to provide humanitarian assistance to the local residents. At the entrance to the locality, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the volunteers, and the latter had to leave.
According to the DPR intelligence, in certain areas of the Donetsk segment of the front, the Ukrainian command ordered to open fire on the territory of the Republic to apply the allegedly response, and unacceptable damage.
According to the materials of the criminal cases opened in the DPR against the Ukrainian army, the amount of damage caused by the Ukrainian military to the population, has exceeded 15 billion rubles (over $ 200 million).
Kiev is also continuing to increase the combat potential of its units on the contact line.
According to the intelligence of the Republics, last week, Kiev delivered three platoons of MLRS «Grad» and «Uragan", as well as 122 and 152mm motorized and towed artillery, to the Donetsk segment of the front, and two trains with armored vehicles and ammunition to the Lugansk segment.
At the same time, in one of the localities, the Ukrainian military placed a depot of rocket-artillery ammunition right in the basement of an apartment house, putting the lives of local residents in jeopardy.
This threat is compounded by the mass drunkenness in the Ukrainian army. According to residents of the towns and villages on the Kiev-controlled territory, they can see sober Ukrainian soldiers on very rare occasions, which results in the number of non-combat losses in the Ukrainian army steadily growing.
According to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, since the launch of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO), non-combat losses of the Ukrainian military have amounted to nearly 1,300 people. However, the Defense Ministry of Ukraine insists that the total loss of the Ukrainian side, both combat and non-combat, have barely exceeded 2,000 people for the entire period of the ATO.
A significant part of non-combat losses in the Ukrainian army is the killed and wounded in clashes between regular units and nationalist battalions. The conflict between them continues to deepen, with the Ukrainian military increasingly accusing the nationalists for unleashing the war.
Early last week, the DPR intelligence reported two cases of attacks on the «Right Sector» and «Azov» nationalist units from the Ukrainian positions, in the Donetsk area and the south of the Republic.
In the middle of the week, in the Lugansk segment of the front, a Ukrainian soldier captured an infantry fighting vehicle, crossed in it the contact line and surrendered to the LPR authorities. Another two Ukrainian soldiers crossed the border with the Russian Federation and surrendered to the Russian border guards.
The protests are growing all over Ukraine. In the south-east of the country, workers of about a dozen companies have sent the President Poroshenko official requests demanding to restore economic ties with Russia.
In Transcarpathia, a region in the west of the country, local authorities have adopted a resolution demanding an autonomy for the region. Earlier, an autonomy from the center was demanded by five other regions of Ukraine, including the Kiev region.
Two days ago, units of the Slobozhansky brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine were transferred from their location in Kharkov to Kiev, in order to protect the public order.
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