Ukrainian paramilitary supported by army attacked rebels in East – Peskov, citing Kremlin data

The latest escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine was caused by an attack from Ukrainian paramilitary units, the Kremlin said, citing its own data and rejecting accusations by Kiev, which said Russia is responsible for it.


Reports of intensified fighting between pro-Ukrainian forces and rebels along the disengagement line in eastern Ukraine came on Monday. According to Moscow’s data, the hostilities were provoked by Ukrainian paramilitary units, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

“[The paramilitary] tried to attack the territory controlled by the [self-proclaimed] republics of Donbass,” he told journalists. “Those units crossed the disengagement line with artillery fire support from the Ukrainian Army. The rebel militia was forced to fight back near the town of Avdeevka and take back the seized land.”

Peskov said that while the so-called “volunteer battalions” are not fully controlled by the government in Kiev, the support provided by regular Ukrainian troops indicates that Ukraine was willing to undermine the truce with the rebels under the Minsk agreement.

The latest violence affected not only combatants, but also civilians in the region. The Ukrainian shelling on Tuesday morning disrupted power supply to one of the coalmines in the rebel-held territory near Avdeevka, the focus of the latest hostilities. The power loss happened when over 200 miners were underground. It took rescue services several hours to evacuate them all........https://on.rt.com/81xn
 RT.COM
31/1/17
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