Back and forth fighting over the international airport in Donetsk has ended with government forces in control, but morgues across the city overflowing after ugly battles that left scores killed, and reports anticipating the toll will rise to at least 100.
The offensive came one day after the election of President Petro Poroshenko, with troops pouring into the airport, and Poroshenko ruling out negotiations, saying the eastern separatists are “terrorists” and “Somali pirates.”
Several were killed in the fighting, but the biggest number of deaths came, according to locals, when troops attacked vehicles transporting wounded away from the airport. The vehicles were destroyed, hit with heavy weapons. Some claimed the attacks were launched by the military, while others say it was the Right Sector paramilitaries from western Ukraine.
The incident is by far the single deadliest incident since protests erupted in the eastern portion of the nation. Since then, the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces have been declared “People’s Republics,” though the central government has promised to reclaim the area militarily.
Russia has urged Ukraine to stop the offensive and attempt negotiation, and had previously warned they reserve the right to intervene to defend the ethnic Russian civilians in the far east of the country. So far there is no indication Russia is any closer to crossing the border, but the high body count in the airport fight is likely to raise new calls among locals.
This is the Uranian army and its savagery tactics, first they send in the hired mercenaries which they were defeated by the people now the "trusted section" of the army consist of Neo fascism that are killing people. Sooner or later the Ukrainian civil war will start if the Neo fascism army continue with what it dose, sooner or later these elements will demand for Hitler to rise either from Ukraine, Austria, Germany or Denmark or Sweden to start the plan in germanize the Europe. The American people needs to know and understand who helped the Neo fascism to rise in Europe since 1990s and who is helping the trend to grow.
"Germanize the Europe…" Laughable. Considering that Doner Kebabs are national dishes of Germany France, and some of the others mentioned, I forgive your lack of a grip on reality.
When you consider the proportions of far-right wing persons in Western Ukriane to the number of Russians with swastika tattoos, you quickly see who is more fascist.
It's no coincidence that Putin's "Putin Youth" movement, "Nashi" sounds oddly like… well, I can't put a "sieg heil" to it.
Does the US government applaud the heroism of the Ukrainian patriots that attacked the vehicles evacuating the wounded? Or do we blame the Russians?
I wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility that it was Blackwater or some other mercenary scum paid by Washington that did it or encouraged the Kiev junta forces to do it. No Geneva Convention here. But whoever did it, they are murderers and cowards.
I see the federalist militias packed into those trucks, which makes for easy targets. Do they not know the concept of guerrilla warfare?
Don't be naïve. The people behind the coup and junta are relentless. All power is derived at the point of a gun, and there is no morality for the pursuit of raw power. Another thing. Americans simply do not care about the rest of the world or if they do they realize that nothing short of conducting our own coup against DC will stop it.
Why do some of the bodies in that room appear to hav their hands tied?
The USG is training their Syrian proxy forces to "finish off the wounded." In Ukraine, the greatest body count comes from finishing off the wounded. It is not difficult or unreasonable to connect these dots.
Exactly. I'd picked up on those two items as well. They do come together to be both obvious and damning, don't they?
Much as I hate war, I think it is time for Russia to move in and liberate these 2 provinces as well as a land connection to Crimea and possibly the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine.
Putin has shown great patients as of now and I still have hope this can be resolved without further bloodshed.
:Ukrainian rebels'??? Way to adopt the imperialist fascist frame.
N.B. The fighters in Donetsk are only 'rebels' if the putsch is legitimate. Otherwise, it's a civil war with 'combatants' on either side. The putschistas are 'rebels' against the Ukrainian constitution.
Come on!
Charles, I agree. How can they be called rebels? They are separatists who are not being allowed to secede from an illegitimate government. I assume that President Putin knows what he's doing, but, since the people there want to return to Russia, I often wonder if he should have sent his troops in right away before the Western Ukrainian fascists had a chance to organize their forces. There may have been much less bloodshed.
Hope springs eternal! Putin has woken up to the fact that nhe has been manipulated by US neocons, so he is unlikely to make a further fool of himself by invading Ukraine and pulling the neocons' chestnuts out of the fire. Incidentally, I can find no trace in the CNN article of Mr Ditz's assertions in that paragraph.
Soldiers in the military of Donetsk People’s Republic seem to have had a minimum of military experience since they all had served as conscripts. In additions, they have officers who served in the disbanded Berkut battalion, which is highly trained. It stands to reason that when one or two military trucks loaded with soldiers to jump out and disperse the seconds they encounter ANY type of shooting. Even the most novice civilian who’s just seen a war movie on TV do this instinctively.
Which means it’s beyond obvious that these soldiers were all wounded. The reason that even the driver didn’t jump out was because he was trying to dodge the bullets to get his comrades to hospital, since they were not in a position to jump out and ran all over – and not anyone put up any resistance.
The fact that these 40-100 were butchered in cold-blood against every kind of international law of war, not only from WWI and II but since antiquity not to attack wounded soldiers – who by definition don’t put up any resistance.
Western media have given at most one single line, quoting the People’s military. Whereas this is clear case of war crime.