In a sharp escalation of fighting in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, the Ukrainian forces suffered their heaviest losses yet in the month-long military operation against pro-Russian separatists.
Ukraine’s Health Ministry put the death toll from rebel raids in the separatist east to 17, adding that at least 36 soldiers had also been hospitalised.
The Ministry said 16 troops died in the town of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, in addition to one soldier killed in another attack in the neighbouring region of Lugansk.
Earlier Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said 13 soldiers had been killed in a rebel attack on an army field camp near the village of Blahodatne south of Donetsk. Mr. Turchynov said the army was ready to launch a “final stage” of the “anti-terrorist operation” in the rebellious Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
However, rebel commander Miroslav Rudenko blamed the attack on ultranationalist members of the Ukrainian National Guard who punished the soldiers for refusal to fight against the rebels.
Video shot at the site two days before the attack showed Ukrainian soldiers telling local residents that they had no desire to fight against civilian population.
Eyewitnesses said the attackers came in vehicles marked “Privatbank,” a Ukrainian bank owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who had set up a private army of mercenaries to fight anti-government protesters in eastern Ukraine.
In neighbouring Luhansk region, “People’s Governor” Valery Bolotov on Thursday declared martial law and ordered mobilisation of the male population as Ukrainian forces attacked the city of Lisichansk.
Several Ukrainian soldiers and self-defence activists were reported killed in fierce fighting on approaches to Lisichansk.
Russia said on Thursday that Ukraine’s pro-Western interim administration had stepped up military operations in the east, contrary to efforts by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to defuse the crisis.
The renewed activism of the military three days before presidential elections showed that Kiev is desperate to create at least a semblance of control over Donetsk and Luhansk, which declared their independence and vowed to disrupt Sunday’s vote.
Row over remark Meanwhile, a scandal involving Britain’s Prince Charles is growing between Moscow and London.
Russia responded with fury to the Prince’s comparison of President Vladimir Putin to Hitler.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday demanded official explanation over Prince Charles’s remark.
On a visit to Canada the Prince told a woman who lost relatives in the Holocaust that “now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler.” Moscow denounced Charles’s comment as “outrageous” and “unacceptable.”
