Kiev, Heavy fighting was reported today in the
frontline between the Ukrainian troops and the Donetsk and Lugansk
unified militias around Debaltsevo, despite the ceasefire declared 48
hours ago.
Last-hour information reports of clashes in the bordering areas of the
cities of Artiomovsk, controlled by the forces of Kiev, and Debaltsevo,
where about five thousand Ukrainian soldiers are surrounded.The defense spokesman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Eduard Basurin told the local news agency that the unified army of the DPR and Lugansk control 80 percent of this strategic city, including the train station.
The Ukrainian military has only control over the western sector of the city, pointed Basurin.
According to the source, another group of about 20 soldiers laid down weapons and voluntarily surrendered to the militia. Even so, an estimate of five thousand are still surrounded, made harder in the last hours by the unified armies of the two insurgent regions.
In Kiev, the spokesman of the command of the military operation in southeast Ukraine, Andrei Lysenko, confirmed that heavy fighting is taking place at the periphery of Debaltsevo, but said that regular forces maintain their positions.
Our men have full right to open fire in response and retain the positions they occupied in recent months, said Lysenko during a press conference.
48 hours away from entry into force of the ceasefire, none of the warring parties has pronounced itself for the start of the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, one of the main points of the February 12 Minsk agreements.
The militias reiterated on Tuesday that they respect the commitments made in the Belarusian capital, but the process of moving the weapons into the containment area is reciprocal, they warned.
Sources of the alternative power in Donetsk confirmed the completion in the afternoon of the Contact Group video conference, whose results have not transcended so far.
UN up-to-date statistics estimate in at least 5,665 the victims of the Ukrainian conflict, plus 13,961 wounded as a result of the Ukrainian conflict.