After the election of Donald Trump the president of the United States, Kiev authorities are in panic, fearing to lose the US support. With every passing day, they are running out of time before a meeting of the leaders of Russia and the United States, where, in particular, the Ukrainian issue will be discussed, so they are multiplying efforts to draw attention to themselves as the victims of the «Russian aggression».
Last week, on the border with Crimea, repeated missile exercises were carried out in the hope that Russia would down launched missiles.
All over Ukraine, there was held the action «Stop war. Stop Putin», which even in Kiev did not gather more than 50 demonstrators and the same amount of journalists.
The SBU claims preventing the assassination of an adviser to the Minister of the Interior, organized, of course, by ‘the Russian special services’, after which the President of Ukraine Poroshenko publicly calls Russia ‘the center of world terrorism’,.
In Donbass, Kiev is also doing everything possible to provoke the Army of the Republic to return fire. The Ukrainian military openly publish video of such provocations in the web.
Last week began in Donbass with over a thousand daily attacks on the part of Ukraine, and ended with the same number of them. The only day of relative calm was January 19, when in Donbass arrived the deputy head of the OSCE mission, Alexander Hug, with the next visit.
But the next day, his presence did no longer stop the Ukrainian military, and every day the number of attacks increased significantly. In just a week, according to the DPR military authorities, Kiev opened fire on the territory of the Republic about 4,500 times, including over 1,000 times from artillery, tanks and mortars.
In some segments of the front, the positions of the parties are so close, that Kiev does not use artillery because of the risk of hitting its own positions. In these places, the Ukrainian side opens daily barrage fire from grenade launchers and small arms.
In repelling the Ukrainian provocations the DPR army lost two soldiers killed and three wounded.
Over the past week, 33 localities of the DPR came under fire. As a result of the shelling, 20 houses were damaged and two children wounded. Moreover, the shelling of the locality where children were affected, was carried out from the locality of Novoluganskoe situated in the «gray» area and occupied by the Ukrainian soldiers in Kiev’s attempt to attack in early January.
Two days ago, during the shelling of the town of Yasinovataya, located to the north of Donetsk, a 122mm artillery shell landed straight in a house, but did not explode, causing, fortunately, no victims among the civilian population.
In addition, there were damaged numerous power lines, which resulted in five villages in the south of the DPR once again de-energized, and even a railroad, which impeded the delivery of the Donbass coal needed to provide Ukrainian citizens with heating.
It looks like the nationalists have completely got out of Kiev’s control and, seeking to seize Donbass at any cost, are willing to condemn their own citizens to genocide.
At the same time, last week the Ukrainian side opened aimed fire not only on objects of vital infrastructure, but also directly on civilians.
In a locality near Gorlovka, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the point of humanitarian aid distribution, when there came the locals.
In a locality situated to the south of Donetsk, the Ukrainian military shelled a civilian bus, which resulted in a woman born in 1965 wounded. At the same time, the Ukrainian mass media reported on the same day that the bus had been shelled by the DPR army. The DPR authorities associate these statements with Alexander Hug’s presence in Donbass and Kiev’s attempt to justify itself in the eyes of the OSCE, as two days before, the shelling of the locality where two children had been affected, did not cause any reaction on the part of the Ukrainian media.
Near the Donetsk Filter Plant (DFP), the DPR intelligence discovered a Ukrainian equipped dugout, despite the fact that Kiev had previously given written guarantees of placing no military within 1.5 km from the plant.
The OSCE observers visited the DFS and documented the presence of the Ukrainian dugout with the personnel in it. However, in their report, the dugout was listed as a ‘kind of construction’, with the same observers continuing to note in their reports non-existent weapons on the territory of the DPR.
After that, during Alexander Hug’s visit to the DFP, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the international observers as well. In all likelihood, it was this fact that forced the deputy head of the OSCE mission to officially report that Ukraine provoked the military aggravation on the outskirts of Donetsk.
Two days earlier, inspecting localities in the south of the DPR under the cannonade pf the Ukrainian artillery ongoing even during the day, and seeing the destruction of residential areas with his own eyes, Alexander Hug declared the need to de-mine the road leading from the southern borders of the DPR to Kiev-controlled Mariupol.
In the LPR, in the mid-week, the Ukrainian side also opened fire on a team of workers who came to repair the railway lines.
At the end of the week, the Ukrainian military shelled with artillery a locality to the west of Lugansk, which resulted in significant destruction in the residential sector. Six hours later, when in the locality arrived the OSCE observers and journalists to document the effects of the shelling, the Ukrainian military again opened fire on them.
Earlier, journalists also came under fire from the Ukrainian side in the area of Debaltsevo.
In addition, at the end of the week, the LPR authorities asked the Ukrainian side for the «regime of silence» in order to de-mine a stretch of the road in the area of the separation of the troops, which is a requirement of the Minsk Agreements. However, Kiev refused to give guarantees that their units would not open fire, openly admitting in such a way that it does not even try to control the nationalists on the front line.
Kiev also has no control over the nationalists on the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, occupied by the Ukrainian army.
In the locality of Zolotoye, which, according to recent agreements in Minsk, is to be completely demilitarized, the Ukrainian military burgled a local female resident’s house and, running away from the local police called by the woman, opened the aimed fire on them.
At one of the checkpoints, the radicals of the «Right Sector» detained and raped a girl, threatening her with the accusation of spying for the LPR. Then, for two more days, they kept her, beating and raping.
In the locality of Troitskoye, situated to the west of Lugansk, drunk Ukrainian soldiers rode an infantry fighting vehicle through the streets, shouting foul language at local residents and shooting at them indiscriminately with automatic weapons and tower guns.
In the same locality, according to the local residents, the nationalists from the western regions of Ukraine take from homes and churches Orthodox icons, lamps and other church items, presumably for sale on the black market.
In addition, according to the LPR intelligence, the radicals of the «Right Sector» withdraw from schools and libraries books and textbooks in Russian and destroy them.
There are also ongoing repressions against residents of the Kiev-controlled territories. Last week, the intelligence of both Republics reported the arrival in front-line localities of dozens of the SBU employees who are searching for local residents having relatives in the DPR and LPR law enforcement agencies.
Using threats and physical pressure, the security officials force local residents to confess to certain crimes on record and then, blackmailing the civilians with the record, force them to find the information the SBU needs.
The intelligence agencies of Ukraine also try to recruit citizens of the Republics, crossing the contact line. The LPR Ministry of State Security reported that in January, they had been approached by 15 residents of the Republic with allegations of coercion in espionage in favor of Ukraine, and last week such statements were received on a daily basis.
In addition, Kiev uses nationalists and the security forces for repression in the Ukrainian army. According to the DPR intelligence, in the south, Mariupol direction, where the tense situation has already persisted for several months, Nazi units of the «Right Sector» and «Azov» are placed in the second line of defense, keeping the regular army units at the forefront.
However, only over the past week, the number of deserters in the Ukrainian army increased to 26 men, all of them taking weapons with them. There are also cases of deliberate self-harm, in order to be hospitalized in the rear.
The DPR intelligence also reported that in the vicinity if the frontline, for the first time since the battle at Debaltsevo in the winter of 2015, there had been noted a mobile crematorium, operated exclusively by the SBU employees. In all likelihood, it is in where find their end deserters, found and destroyed on the spot, and the killed in ongoing attempts to break through the defense of the Republics.
Not relying on its military, Kiev increases the number of mercenaries on the frontline. Only in the Lugansk segment of the front, according to the intelligence of the Republic, last week arrived over 300 mercenaries. In the Donetsk segment of the front, in the mid-week, arrived about 300 soldiers of an unknown unit.
In addition, last week, in addition to two artillery batteries, five companies of armored vehicles and two mortar batteries, Kiev delivered to the front line a division of MLRS «Grad», a division of MLRS «Smerch», 10 MLRS «Uragan» and 12 Mi-8 helicopters with combat arms.At the forefront in the LPR, the heavy machinery of the Ukrainian side is clearly seen at any time of the day.
Moreover, the president of Ukraine, Poroshenko signed a decree on the division of the air space of Ukraine into several zones, with in a separate, no-fly area above Donbass, and said that before solving the issue of security in Donbass, there would be no changes made in Constitution of the country, including the special status of Donbass.
In the middle of last week, in the north, Gorlovka direction of the Donetsk front, arrived engineering units of the Ukrainian Army, which began de-mining the front lines.
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