More than ten people were killed and dozens injured during the strongest in many months of skirmishes between the army and anti-government forces in Eastern Ukraine. Intensification of the fighting can be one of the first tests the ability of the President of trump to negotiate with the Kremlin about a difficult conflict.
In Washington on Tuesday, the State Department called for an immediate cease-fire.
At temperatures below minus 4 Grad rockets and 152 mm artillery shells (the descriptions of Ukrainian officials) for several days fell on the city of Avdeevka, industrial city, built around a large coke plant. Here — the epicenter of conflict in this three-year conflict. Ukrainian forces who re-took the city in 2014, suffered heavy losses during the recent escalation. Two days killed eight people, and 26 were injured. The separatists said that in the fighting two of their fighters were killed and six were injured.
The recent round of fighting was sudden, and both sides blamed each other.
“Today, for the first time in many days launchers “Grad” and heavy artillery were used against the civilian population and our units, — said the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during a meeting with security personnel on Tuesday. — Attacks are very strong.”
The situation became so dire that the Ukrainian authorities announced the evacuation of the Town — the first during the conflict.
Veronica Bach, a spokesman gschs in Donetsk region, said by phone from 8 a.m. on Wednesday at about 12 thousand people can be evacuated on buses and trains. Conditions in the city very difficult, she said, not enough electricity and drinking water.
The escalation of the fighting occurred just a few days after the first telephone conversation trump with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, when the two discussed the conflict in Ukraine and announced plans to improve relations. The fighting in Ukraine, where Russia supports the anti-government separatists, and the war in Syria became the main reason for the difficulties in relations between Putin and former President Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, trump repeated the Russian theses on Ukraine during his campaign, saying that Putin has not sent its military into the country and that the majority of people in Crimea wanted to be part of Ukraine.
Ukrainian administration seeks to establish a relationship with trump, relying on the traditional skepticism of the Republicans against Russia, which will help to convince the new President to provide Kiev a much-needed US support. Ukrainian officials said about a possible meeting between the two presidents in February, though it’s unclear where and how it is organized.
There have been suggestions that the Kremlin wants to experience the trump at the beginning of his presidency through international crisis or take advantage of the chaos in Washington to consolidate the achievements in South-Eastern Ukraine. But now that trump in the White house, the Kremlin might consider negotiations the best way to get what you want — the cancellation of sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea and the recognition of Russia as a great power that can dominate in the region of influence, which includes Ukraine.
Mark Toner, acting spokesman for the State Department, said that the OSCE observers reported the use of heavy artillery and other weapons prohibited by the Minsk Protocol, which was to become the plan out of the crisis and which is mostly ignored. He said that a ceasefire is necessary to avoid a greater humanitarian crisis, and reiterated that the US supports the Minsk agreement.
The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 10 thousand people from April 2014. Little territory passed from hands to hands from February 2015, when the separatists seized the city of Debaltsevo during the bloody attack. Periodically still occur exacerbation in the form of artillery “duels”.
Tuesday night there were no indications that the intensity of the fighting decreases. Musa Magomedov, the head of the coke plant in Avdeevka, which is able to communicate via the Internet, said the city is still “very healthy”.
Magomedov said that the gas plant is currently used to heat water for the city, but the mill urgently needed supplies of natural gas — otherwise it will have to close.
Press Secretary of the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov told reporters that this violence is “a provocation”.
At an emergency meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna chargé d’affaires Kate Byrnes, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, was accused of abuse of “United Russian-separatist forces”.
“We call on Russia to stop the violence, respect the ceasefire, withdraw heavy weapons and to stop trying to seize new territories outside of the line of contact,” she said.
