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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Artillery, infantry battles continue at Yasinovataya
2016-03-23


For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.

Fighting between Ukrainian forces and rebels continued into its third week at Yasinovataya as both sides exchange artillery and small arms fire, according to Russian language news accounts.

Ukrainian ministry of defense officials said on Tuesday that rebel forces violated the ceasefire a total of 27 times, by firing mortars onto Ukrainian positions at Avdievka and firing small arms at Ukrainian troops at Avdievka, Zaitsevo, which is north of Gorlovka and at Marinka, which is west of Donetsk city.

Ukrainian officials characterized the fighting as low intensity, which rebel military officials dispute.

According to an official news release from the Donetsk ministry of defense, Ukrainian troops have been firing 120mm and 82mm mortars onto rebel positions at Yasinovataya. Included in the attack was a ten minute barrage Monday night on the Yasinovataya checkpoint and again Tuesday afternoon.

The rebel reports say that the artillery originates in Avdievka. Small arms including sniper fire is "continuous", as characterized by rebel media.

A partial news account which appeared in tsensor.net.ua said that fighting between Ukrainian forces and rebels over the crossroads was characterized as "serious."

According to another rebel report, shelling at Yasinovataya stopped momentarily when representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Russian Major General Rustam Muradov from the joint control center arrived at the checkpoint.

Yet another rebel official news release said that Ukrainian forces fired on rebel forces at Spartak, the Donetsk airport and in the Petrovskiy district of Donetsk city.

In the south Ukrainian forces shelled rebel forces at Dokuchaevsk, Kominternovo and at Bezymenoye.

Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraine by clicking here.
Posted by:badanov

#2  One source I read said that Russian aircraft were in dire need of maintenance that they could not get in Latakia.

Russians have zero experience in sustained combat operations, so it showed with problems with their aircraft enough they had to withdraw half of them.
Posted by: badanov   2016-03-23 17:37  

#1  I still wonder, why did Putin withdraw forces from Syria?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2016-03-23 03:43  

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