Ukraine troops retake Donetsk airport area with ‘mass operation’

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Ukraine troops retake Donetsk airport area with ‘mass operation’

Reuters in Kiev
The Guardian, Sunday 18 January 2015 15.17 GMT

Ukrainian troops launched a “mass operation” overnight, retaking almost all the territory of Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine lost to separatists in recent weeks, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Sunday.

The army’s offensive at the airport brought the fighting close to the city of Donetsk itself, centre of a pro-Russian separatist rebellion. Residents reported intensified outgoing shelling including from residential areas in central parts of the separatist-held city.

“The decision was taken for a mass operation … We succeeded in almost completely cleaning the territory of the airport, which belongs to the territory of Ukrainian forces as marked by military separation lines,” Lysenko said in a televised briefing.

Lysenko said the operation had returned the battle lines near the airport to the previous status quo and that the Ukrainian army had thus not violated the Minsk 12-point peace plan agreed with Russia and separatist leaders last September.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/18/ukraine-troops-retake-donetsk-airport-area-mass-operation

[Duckhunter935]

1. think RT will mention this in it's coverage?

Residents reported intensified outgoing shelling including from residential areas in central parts of the separatist-held city.

[DetlefK]

2. We have always been at war with Oceania and comrade Putin will protect us from western aggression.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Obviously those are

neo-con funded Blackwater mercs sent by Obama's DoS to infiltrate separatist enclaves to stage false flag ops to justify Ukrainian war crimes to stop the Reunification.

I'm just sure if it!

[Duckhunter935]

4. undercover NATO nt

[Igel]

5. No, but Putin's upset.

And has said that he wants the ceasefire enforced, calling for more meetings.

When his puppies are winning, he's pretty silent. But when his puppies run to their sir, well, he has to show who's dominant.


What's not included in the reporting are the battles and shelling that's been happening for the last couple of days along much of the border. More than one soldier and "peaceful civilian" killed, even ignoring Volnovakha and the oddly predictable calls by Lavrov in response: When a Ukr unit kills a DNR or LNR soldier or civilian, the blame is clear; as soon as it's likely that the "good guys" on the Russian side did a bad thing, the immediate response must be to set up an investigative team to find out what really happened. (This speech is probably printed out on the wall and laminated; some flunky uses a dry-erase marker to write in the name of the latest atrocity. Imagine the paper saved by this.)

Then there are the claims by the DNR that they could easily take Mariupol.

And I haven't seen reported in English yet that in response to the attack and the fear that this might mean an assault, the main bridge from the airport to the city was blown up.

[Duckhunter935]

6. yes, now Putin again says

he wants artillery moved back now that his guys are losing. Ukrainian positions have been shelled for months and so have parts of Mariupol and the airport not to mention the power plant in the north.

Here is a good picture of the bridge, a tank was caught under it, must have been a last ditch effort to stop them.