Rebels launch 'intense' attacks on Ukraine government troops: Kiev military [View all]

[another_liberal]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Pro-Russian rebels launched new attacks against Ukrainian government positions on Sunday, the Kiev army said, as Western countries threatened more sanctions against Moscow for backing a new separatist offensive.

Recent days have seen the worst fighting in eastern Ukraine since a September ceasefire, restarting a war that has already killed more than 5,000 people. Rebels have announced an offensive and launched an assault on Saturday on Mariupol, a major port of 500,000 people, where Kiev said thirty civilians were killed by shelling. Kiev officials said the offensive continued on Sunday along other areas in the front, which winds through two eastern provinces partially controlled by the separatists.

"Rebels are attacking the positions of anti-terrorist operation troops extremely intensively, using artillery, mortars, grenade launchers, tanks," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing. He said four Ukrainian servicemen had been killed and 17 injured in the past 24 hours and reported that rebel attacks on the town of Debaltseve, northeast of separatist-held Donetsk, had been particularly fierce. "Because of constant shelling in the past few days, there are dead and injured among local residents. Around 60 homes have been destroyed or damaged," he said without giving a figure for the number of casualties.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said on Saturday the separatists planned to encircle Debaltseve, which has a population of around 26,000.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/25/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0KY0PF20150125

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This civil war gets worse every passing day. The suffering of civilians caught up amidst the fighting in the middle of winter has to be terrible. Yet our government is willing to announce plans for deploying more military equipment, as well as military advisers and trainers, to support our side in the fighting? Is encouraging a full-blow war in eastern Europe really to our advantage as a member of the community of nations?