Monday, July 7, 2014

Pro-Russian Separatist Rebels are Losing Ground against the Ukrainian Government Forces

With a fierce onslaught of gunfire and mortar shelling, Ukrainian government forces on Saturday chased pro-Russian insurgents from Slovyansk, a long-blockaded rebel stronghold, government officials and separatist leaders said.
As rebels fled the city, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in a separatist insurrection that has lasted more than three months, the Ukrainian military destroyed a tank, two combat vehicles, and two armored personnel carriers, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Lysenko, said.
“Run!” the Ukrainian interior minister, Arsen Avakov, wrote in a jubilant Facebook post on the retaking of Solvyansk. “The terrorists are bearing losses, surrendering.” 
Local news services in eastern Ukraine reported that insurgents were traveling south from Slovyansk toward the regional capital of Donetsk.
Though it was not yet clear whether the retaking of Slovyansk signaled a decisive blow against the rebels in eastern Ukraine, it showed that Ukrainian forces were finally gaining traction and reasserting state authority, three months after separatists seized control of cities and towns throughout the region, dividing this country of 45 million people. 
The Ukrainian advance on Saturday came four days after President Petro Poroshenko ended a cease-fire and ordered the military to resume efforts to crush the rebellion by force.
Read the rest of the story HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.


No comments: