Earlier this week, Kiev once again began to use in the shelling of Donbass MLRS "Grad", in addition to howitzers, tanks and motorized artillery systems. Only yesterday the DPR Defense Ministry reported 20 missile hits on the territory of the Republic, which was recorded by the OSCE observers. Over the past week, the Ukrainian side made about 100 rounds from rocket artillery.
In total, over the past week, the Ukrainian military opened fire on the territory of the DPR about 4,000 times, which is, according to the authorities of the Republic, 700 times more than the previous week. Approximately 3,000 rounds were made from the Ukrainian heavy weapons.
Kiev carried out bombardments along the entire contact line, from Gorlovka in the north of the Republic to Dokuchaevsk in the south. Only in the past two days, the number of attacks on the DPR localities reached 1,000, with about 300 of them made with heavy artillery.
The particularly intensive fire was opened again on the locality of Zaytsevo to the north Gorlovka, part of which is occupied by the Ukrainian military, and the other by the DPR army. In this locality, as in many other shelled towns, the most valuable asset of local families is large soft toys. During attacks, parents shield their children with them, as well as with their own bodies.
Soldiers of the DPR army in the Donetsk area also reported that the Ukrainian military almost every night tried to test their defense, rushing into attacks, often in armored vehicles. During the clashes, the Ukrainian side was seen using American weapons, sniper and mortar.
According to the Ombudsman of the Republic, over the week, 5 soldiers of the DPR army were killed in battles. The losses among the civilian population were, as usual, more serious: two civilians were killed and seven wounded, one of them with sniper weapons.
According to the DPR Ministry of Emergency data, over the past week, in the localities of the Republic, 78 homes were damaged and destroyed, two of which were completely burned. In total, as a result of the shelling, there occurred 9 fires in Donetsk, Gorlovka, Yasinovataya, located between them, and Dokuchaevsk. In addition, in one of the districts of Donetsk, a pipeline was damaged again, and power lines in Gorlovka and Dokuchaevsk, leaving these cities partially de-energized. In Yasinovataya, a bombardment targeted the railway station which is an important transportation hub in the Republic.
Residents of one of the suburbs of Donetsk, who survive under daily shelling, said that the OSCE observers did not come to them because of the threat to their lives, and that even old ladies were already willing to join the militia in order to stop the destruction of the civilian population of Donbass.
The DPR Army was forced to open respond fire. The Ukrainian military had long been placing their weapons and equipment in the courtyards of civilian houses on the territory under their control. Therefore, the aim of the soldiers of the Republic were Ukrainian warehouses of ammunition, where one hit is sufficient to destroy them due to detonation. Over the past two days, two warehouses with ammunition were destroyed in such a way in the west and south-west of Donetsk. Another two warehouses were destroyed at the beginning of the week due to the negligence of the Ukrainian military.
In the LPR, over the past week, the Ukrainian side opened fire 44 times and launched on the territory of the Republic 779 shells of various calibers. In addition, according to the Defense Ministry, two days ago, another Ukrainian subversive group made an attempt to break through in the Lugansk segment of the front. The attack was repelled at the cost of two LPR soldiers’ lives.
Yesterday, the OSCE monitoring mission made a statement that its observers had come under fire from the Ukrainian side in the Lugansk area.
Soldiers of the both Republics army report the still ongoing activity of Kiev reconnaissance with drones. Moreover, in the middle of the past week, soldiers of the LPR army managed to seize a Ukrainian UAV, which was found to be carrying home-made explosives equivalent to 1,100 g of TNT of. For comparison, a defensive fragmentation grenade contains 92 g of TNT.
The investigation allowed the military authorities of the Republic to suggest that the impact drone was heading towards Lugansk. It looks like Kiev was planning to attack the capital of the LPR, with the greatest possible number of victims among the civilian population. Just as it happened on July 2, 2014, when the Ukrainian aircraft struck the center of the city with unguided rockets, which resulted in 8 killed civilians and another 28 wounded.
The LPR intelligence reported that, after the Ukrainian drone captured and the information about its possible target made public, the Ukrainian military in the Lugansk segment of the front announced a hunt for any aircraft in their reach in the area. As a result, during the past week, over the Ukrainian positions, there was hit their own drone, as well as a drone of the OSCE, on which the mission made an official statement.
The intelligence of both republics also continues to report the growth in non-combat losses in the Ukrainian army. Over the past week, in the Donetsk segment of the front they reached the number of 175 men, in the Lugansk segment 34 men, with the Ukrainian units understaffed, according to the LPR intelligence, by 25 - 40%.
In addition, the LPR Ministry of State Security received information from a former soldier of the penal battalion of the MIA of Ukraine that on the Kiev-controlled territory in the north of Lugansk, there are two mass graves of the Ukrainian military. By order of the Kiev authorities, in order to conceal the real losses, there are secretly buried about 100 Ukrainian soldiers who are declared missing.
At the same time, Kiev continues to prepare for a new wave of mobilization and to deliver equipment and weapons to the front line. Over the past week, the intelligence of the Republics reported on arrival at the contact line of several divisions of MLRS "Grad", about 10 batteries of 122 and 152mm howitzers, 3 tank companies, a battery of air defense units and 30 infantry fighting vehicles.
In their turn, the OSCE observers are documented, in their weekly report, the withdrawal from the sites of the Ukrainian equipment and weapons storage of about 100 152mm howitzers, over 40 100mm anti-tank cannons, 40 tanks, 50 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, over 20 MLRS "Grad", and 3 air defense missile systems.
The President of Ukraine Poroshenko said last week that the military equipment, presented at the parade on the Independence Day of Ukraine on August 24, would go after the parade straight to the front in Donbass. At the same time, the vast majority of this equipment is prohibited by the Minsk Agreements.
Soldiers of the Republics on the positions in all segments of the front report that the Ukrainian side is actively building fortifications, laying out minefields and equipping firing positions.
The Republics intelligence sources on the ground report that the Ukrainian military occupy buildings of schools, colleges, kindergartens and even medical facilities for their headquarters and barracks, which puts in jeopardy the beginning of the school year on 1 September in Kiev-controlled areas.
There are still ongoing cleansing operations in the frontline areas controlled by Ukraine. The press service of the ATO staff stated that, over the past week, at the Ukrainian checkpoints 5 «militants» had been detained and 18 local residents ‘communicating with the terrorists’. One of them was arrested after Russian license plates, a gas can of Russian origin and a St. George's ribbon had been found in his car.
Daily shelling peaceful localities of Donbass, Kiev is unceasingly talking about the war against Russia, and that ‘Ukraine protects Europe from the Russian aggression’, in the name of which it requires the supply of weapons from the West, preferably offensive ones.
In response to such a request by the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, voiced live on the German Deutschlandfunk radio, a German journalist remarked that ‘if Ukraine has something in excess, it is weapon’ and asked why ‘the world's largest exporter of arms, Ukraine, can not produce itself weapons it needs’.
At the same time, two days ago, the Pentagon made an official statement that did not observed in the Crimea and on the Ukrainian border any movement of Russian troops, which could be qualified as signs of preparation for an invasion into Ukraine.
The US Vice President Biden, in a telephone conversation with the President of Ukraine Poroshenko, urged the Kiev authorities to show restraint.
And yet, one of Kiev's political analysts, close to Yulia Tymoshenko's party, said that if the media reports on the removal of the US nuclear weapons from Turkey were true, those weapons ought to be placed in Ukraine.
An advisor to the head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Ukrainian television that the country needed only to wait for Hillary Clinton coming to power in the United States as, in this case, ‘Ukraine may be granted lethal weapons’.
The President of Ukraine Poroshenko said that a full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine was scheduled for August 24, the Independence Day of the country.
Meanwhile, columns of Ukrainian military equipment are continuing to move not only to Donbass, but also to the border of Ukraine with the Crimea.
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