Written by Chris Covert exclusively for SouthFront
Ukrainian and Russian backed forces in western Donetsk continued to exchange artillery fire, according to Russian language news accounts.
According to several reports posted on censor.net.ua, on Monday rebel mortar fire struck Ukrainian forces in several keys areas including at Avdievka and Troitskoye. Small arms fire and automatic grenade launcher fire was recorded at Marinka and Krasnogorovka.
Click to see the full-size map. Source: burkonews.info
The report which quoted sources with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s ATO zone (the zone of military operations against Donbass militias) said rebels struck Ukrainian positions 15 times.
A separate censor.net.ua report said that three Ukrainian national guardsmen were evacuated from the combat zone on Wednesday, but the report failed to note where the soldiers were wounded.
The Donetsk ministry of defense, in its website, claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to hit rebel positions all along the line of contact on Tuesday. One report said that over a 24 hour period rebel troops were fired on by Ukrainian forces a total of 440 times, to include grenade launcher and small arms fire.
According to the report Ukrainian mortar and artillery fire hit rebel positions at Yasinovataya, Petrovsky district of Donetsk, Spartak and at the Donetsk airport.
In southern Donetsk, Ukrainian fire hit rebel positions at Sahanka and Kominternovo.
A report which appeared on the website of blogger Chervonets Andryuha from a rebel militiaman identified as “Magician” said on June 16th, that Ukrainian artillery fire starts up at dusk, about 2030 hrs (military time) or 8:30 PM (standart time) and continues until dawn at 0400 hrs. He said that rebels generally responds with counterbattery fire only.
Magician said that last Thursday, Friday and Saturday Ukrainian fired on rebel forces more than 1,000 times.
Man gets 9 years prison for directing artillery in 2015
According to a news account which appeared in korrespondent.net, an unidentified man was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the rocket artillery strike on Mariupol on January 24th, 2015.
Ukrainian and western media claimed at the time that the artillery came from rebel forces in the area, but rebel leaders said that artillery hit was a short fired from Ukrainian rocket artillery units stationed west and northwest of the city.
Much of the video which purported to prove it was rebel artillery was inconclusive. This writer saw the videos and concluded it was Ukrainian artillery firing shorts.
Rebel sources at the time said that Ukrainian artillery has intended to cover the movement of forces through the city and was simply fired short.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
The SAS of the evil-UK-Empire is running freely all over Ukraine blowing people up. They even plant listening devices inside of Russia every year. Someone needs to hunt down these SAS-Terrorist and deal with them once and for all. And a much larger plan needs to be put into place by dozens of nations around the globe to deal with the Terrorist-Mi6 permanently. They after all run the drug trade. https://www.rt.com/uk/347621-leave-voters-mi5-brexit/