Ukraine set to seize more territory from rebels
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UKRAINE’S government said it would quickly seize more territory from rebels after re-taking the separatist stronghold of Slaviansk in what President Petro Poroshenko called a turning point in the fight for control of the country’s east.
Government forces routed pro-Russian rebels in the flashpoint city on Saturday and raised the blue and yellow national flag over what had for months been a separatist redoubt.
Yesterday, Ukrainian forces shelled parts of the rebel-held town of Luhansk near the Russian border, hitting a battery-making factory and other buildings, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported, quoting rebels in the town.
It said some people were wounded but there was no further word on casualties. “People are hurriedly fleeing to bomb-shelters or are leaving the area that is being shelled,” it said.
“My order is now in effect — tighten the ring around the terrorists,” Poroshenko tweeted yesterday. “Continue the operation to liberate Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” he said, naming Ukraine’s two major eastern parts which have boiled with separatist rebellion since April.
In a statement, Ukraine’s interior minister Arsen Avakov said: “We have a plan of action... We will move forward every day.”
There were no immediate figures for casualties caused by the government offensive in Slaviansk, which comes after Poroshenko refused to renew a unilateral ceasefire and ordered the resumption of a government offensive on June 30.
Ukrainian forces said they now had full control of Slaviansk and the nearby town of Kramatorsk. Many rebels seemed to have retreated toward Donetsk, the east’s main industrial hub where separatists first declared a “people’s republic.”
Armed rebels were patrolling one of the main streets of Donetsk yesterday, local news agency Novosti Donbass said.
Slaviansk has been the most important stronghold of the militants fighting government forces in mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, a focal point of tensions between the West and Russia.
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