Militants stage renewed Ukraine airport assault
(MENAFN- Arab News) KIEV: Pro-Russian insurgents launched a fresh assault Thursday on an airport held by isolated Ukrainian forces as a month-old truce came under renewed strain and calls grew for the Kremlin to help halt the bloody revolt.
Ukraine also dispatched its energy chiefs to Brussels in a bid to convince the European Union to back up Kiev at crunch talks with Russia on the latest energy war with its westward-leaning but effectively bankrupt neighbor.
Nearly 70 Ukrainian troops and civilians along with an undisclosed number of separatist gunmen who control swathes of eastern Ukraine have been killed since Moscow and Kiev signed a 12-point peace pact on Sept. 5.
But the five-month uprising has barely slowed and the rebels continue to reject Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to save the ex-Soviet country from breaking up by offering autonomy to its ethnically Russian parts.
Ten civilians died Wednesday in the shelling of a school and bus station in the main separatist stronghold of Donetsk. Both sides traded blame for the attack.
On Thursday the resurgent rebels backed up by what NATO claims are hundreds of Russian elite forces mounted waves of all-out attacks on the devastated airport on the northern outskirts of Donetsk that has been their target since May.
Ukrainian defense spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said the militiamen used tanks to shell besieged government forces who control the main terminal but none of the roads leading to what was once the east's busiest air hub.
'At the moment the situation at the airport is tense' said Seleznyov. 'They are staging their second assault of the morning.'
The upsurge in violence prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel viewed as Kiev's closest and most powerful European ally to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and remind him of Moscow's 'responsiblity' to rein in the rebels.
The Kremlin said Putin told Merkel he backed peace and 'stressed the need to prevent further attacks by Ukrainian units on civilian buildings in southeast Ukraine.'
Ukraine also dispatched its energy chiefs to Brussels in a bid to convince the European Union to back up Kiev at crunch talks with Russia on the latest energy war with its westward-leaning but effectively bankrupt neighbor.
Nearly 70 Ukrainian troops and civilians along with an undisclosed number of separatist gunmen who control swathes of eastern Ukraine have been killed since Moscow and Kiev signed a 12-point peace pact on Sept. 5.
But the five-month uprising has barely slowed and the rebels continue to reject Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to save the ex-Soviet country from breaking up by offering autonomy to its ethnically Russian parts.
Ten civilians died Wednesday in the shelling of a school and bus station in the main separatist stronghold of Donetsk. Both sides traded blame for the attack.
On Thursday the resurgent rebels backed up by what NATO claims are hundreds of Russian elite forces mounted waves of all-out attacks on the devastated airport on the northern outskirts of Donetsk that has been their target since May.
Ukrainian defense spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said the militiamen used tanks to shell besieged government forces who control the main terminal but none of the roads leading to what was once the east's busiest air hub.
'At the moment the situation at the airport is tense' said Seleznyov. 'They are staging their second assault of the morning.'
The upsurge in violence prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel viewed as Kiev's closest and most powerful European ally to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and remind him of Moscow's 'responsiblity' to rein in the rebels.
The Kremlin said Putin told Merkel he backed peace and 'stressed the need to prevent further attacks by Ukrainian units on civilian buildings in southeast Ukraine.'
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