Fighting Escalates in Eastern Ukraine

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A woman cries near her burning house after shelling in the city of Slovyansk, Donetsk Region, eastern Ukraine, Monday, June 30, 2014. Residential areas came under shelling on Monday morning from government forces.

Image: Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press

By Christopher Miller2014-07-01 20:12:52 UTC

DONETSK, Ukraine -– Fighting escalated in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday after President Petro Poroshenko declared the end of a unilateral ceasefire and relaunched a military campaign to reclaim its territory from pro-Russian separatists.

See also: 9 Essential Questions About Ukraine, Answered

Ukrainian military forces began bombarding the rebels early on Tuesday and continued to do so throughout the day, with heavy artillery and air strikes across the restive separatist strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, authorities said.

Their account was confirmed by YouTube videos verified by Storyful.

“We will attack and we will liberate our land,” Poroshenko said in his televised address to the nation.

The massive assault by Ukrainian government forces came after Poroshenko had a four-way phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. Poroshenko also talked on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

In his address early Tuesday, Poroshenko said pro-Russian rebels had failed to accept what he called a “unique opportunity” to support his 15-step peace plan and had violated the unilateral ceasefire instated on June 20. Since then, 27 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed during clashes with the rebels, the Foreign Ministry said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he lamented Poroshenko’s decision to resume its military operations.

Neither Putin nor, as he put it, "my EU colleagues could not convince him that the road to stable, solid and long-term peace cannot go through war,” Putin said.

In Donetsk, one of the epicenters of the separatist uprising, bursts of gunfire echoed through the city on Tuesday as rebel gunmen fought Ukrainian police forces holed up inside a building on a main avenue. The gunfight stopped traffic and terrified residents, who scurried into apartment and office buildings to escape the line of fire.

The rebels killed one police officer and badly injured two more during the fight, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his official Facebook page. Later the ministry reported three people were seriously injured.

Three others were wounded and being cared for at a local hospital. Police successfully repelled the attack, the ministry said on its website.

Mashable could not confirm the ministry’s information, but was told a different — and stranger — tale by rebels. They said their group -– comprised of fighters from the Donetsk and nearby Horlivka — were locked in a fight with snipers perched inside the building and on top of surrounding roofs. Inside the building, they said, were separatist “hostages” that they were attempting to release.

Some 60 miles north, a battle took place at Karachun Hill, where Ukrainian forces have been positioned for more than two months, enduring regular shelling from rebel forces and dishing it out in return.

As the two groups exchanged fire early Tuesday, the 650-foot TV tower atop the hill came crashing down, after an explosion destroyed its support cables.

In the city center, six civilians were killed and at least five more were wounded when a their bus carrying came under fire, reported local news site Kramatorsk.INFO. Photographs from the scene showed the bloody body of a woman resting atop shattered glass in the aisle of the bullet-riddled yellow bus. It is unclear which side shot at the vehicle, but several reports indicate that fire came from the Ukrainians.

Further north, Ukrainian forces seized control of Stary Karavan and Brusivka villages, National Guard Commander Stepan Poltorak told reporters Tuesday evening at the headquarters for the government’s “anti-terrorist operation” in Izyum, according to the Interfax news agency.

“Just five minutes ago I was told that the operation had been completed in the village of Stary Karavan and it had passed to our full control. The village of Brusivka is also under our control, and personnel are setting up roadblocks,” he said. He added that not a single one of his fighters suffered injuries or was killed during fights on Tuesday.

In another military victory, Poroshenko congratulated Ukraine’s State Border Guard service after it retook control of the Dovzhansky border control checkpoint, which had previously been seized by pro-Russian rebels and is believed to have been used as a passage for artillery and fighters to pass into Ukraine from Russia.

NATO previously released a series of satellite images it said showed tanks leaving a Russian military compound and crossing into eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied supplying the separatists with military assistance.

Amid the fierce fights, reports surfaced of separatist fighters giving themselves up to Ukrainian forces and asking for safe passage back to Russia, according to Ukrainian news sites Ukrainska Pravda and Ukrinform, citing government officials.

“We are conducting negotiations with members of the Donbas self-defense group, who want to leave the area. Their number is currently unknown. At the moment we are simply checking them and letting them go,” Oleksiy Dmitrashkovskiy, a spokesperson for the government’s military operation told Ukrainska Pravda. He said three rebels were escorted out on Monday.

Zoryan Shkiryak, an advisor to Avakov, the interior minister, wrote on Facebook that rebels also have begun giving up their weapons, “even in groups.”

Pro-Russian separatists tighten security measures with concrete blocks and sandbags as they check the identity of people at a checkpoint in Donetsk, Ukraine on July 1, 2014

Image: Soner Kilinc/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

However, the self-proclaimed prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Borodai, said he was not aware of any cases in which his fighters surrendered.

Kiev-based Hromadske TV reported that its reporter Anastasia Stanko and cameraman Ilya Bezkorovayniy had been detained by separatists in Luhansk and the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, Valeriy Bolotov, said they were being held for spying.

“The journalists have been detained on counts of spying for and assisting the Ukrainian authorities," he said at a press conference. “They are in the Luhansk republic and...they are having tea and cake."

Also in Luhansk region, two REN TV reporters were injured when Ukrainian forces fired shells toward their position, a television station spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

“Our correspondent was injured in Luhansk region, one kilometer from the Russian-Ukrainian border. A REN TV news crew came under mortar fire near the Izvaryne border crossing point outside of Luhansk. Presumably a howitzer projectile exploded near the journalist. Correspondent Denis Lulaga suffered a concussion. He cannot hear anything. Blood is leaking from his ears,” the TV station said. Its cameraman also suffered a concussion in the event.

On Monday, a Russian television cameraman was killed after being shot in the stomach while on assignment in Donetsk.

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