The Avdievka water plant, repaired only hours before after nearly 10 days of being offline, is once against offline due to artillery shelling, according to Russian language news accounts.
According to several Ukrainian news accounts, shelling from Russian backed rebels damaged power transmission lines to the plant. However, rebel media claim it was shelling by Ukrainian forces which forced the shutdown of the plant.
In the time between repair of the plant and the latest shutdown, the town of Avdievka managed to increase their water reserves which were low after being shut down after several days of shelling. None of the other nearby towns on both sides of the line of contact have released information about the condition of their supplies.
Rebel media reports say that Ukrainian forces started shelling the plant at around 0830 hours March 5th, forcing workers at the plant to seek shelter. But according to a news account in korrespondent.net, rebel shelling commenced at 1610 on March 5th, and caused damage to the power lines servicing the plant.
According to a news report in lb.ua, Ukrainian forces lost one killed and 12 wounded in ongoing fighting in Donetsk and Lugansk, with Ukrainian forces suffering hits by rebel artillery in most of the same places suffered over the last two days near the Mariupol region, near the Sea of Azov.
According to a news account in censor.net.ua, rebel forces hit Ukrainian positions with mortar and tank gun fire at Avdievka, Butova mine, Peski, Opytnoye, Verkhnetoretskoye, Zaitsevo and Kamenka.
In Lugansk, rebel 152mm artillery struck Ukrainian positions at Kalinovo, Popasnaya, Novozvanovka and Troitskoye.
According to rebel media, a total of 19 residential buildings were damaged in Ukrainian shelling over the previous 24 hours. One news release from the Donetsk ministry of defense said that Ukrainian forces fired on rebel positions on the line of contact in Donetsk more than 2,400 times, which is a nearly 50 percent increase from the previous day. That number includes small arms fire as well as artillery shelling.
Of the total of residential buildings damaged, four were in the Petrovskiy district of western Donetsk city, 11 were in Gorlovka, which is directly north of Donetsk city, three in Yasinovataya and one in Dokuchaevsk.
Among the 13 towns and villages hit by Ukrainian artillery were Staromikailovka, Trudovskoye, Yrlrnovka, in western Donetsk city, Yasinovataya, Spartak, Zaitsevo and Gorlovka.
Four villages near Mariupol were hit by Ukrainian artillery including Dokuchaevsk, Bezimya, Sahanka and Kominternovo.
A separate rebel news release said that two rebel soldiers were killed and one was wounded in the shelling.
According to a separate account which appeared in novorosinform.org quoting militiamen near the Mariupol region, two small Ukrainian Navy boats, said to be moored in Mariupol went to a position about one kilometer offshore of Bezymennoye and started firing heavy machine guns at rebel troops stationed there. Rebel troops returned fire. The gun battle last 30 minutes before the boats returned to base.