Andriy Lysenko: US military instructors arrive in Ukraine

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Kyiv, April 17, 2015. Around 300 paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US Army arrived in Lviv. American instructors will train Ukrainian servicemen, said Colonel Andriy Lysenko, ATO spokesperson, at the press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

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 Reporting on the situation in the ATO zone, Col. Lysenko said that Russia-backed militants have shelled the Ukrainian military positions five times with 120-mm mortars and twice with 122-mm artillery. Militants did not use their armored vehicle yesterday. “The around the Donetsk airport and the outskirts of Horlivka, Shyrokyne and Talakivka, Popasna and Sokilnyky – in the Donetsk, Mariupol and Luhansk sectors respectively – were the hotspots of the conflict,” he said.

Ukrainian border guards spotted 10 enemy UAVs; the anti-aircraft forces have downed one of them in the area of Butkivka, Luhansk region.

Ukrainian Armed Forces did not incur any lethal casualties in the last 24 hours; one serviceman got wounded.

Ukraine’s Security Service uncovered a subversive group that was plotting to explode military and freight trains on the Prydniprovska railway in Dnipropetrovsk region. Insurgents are suspects of another crime – an attempt to blast railway tracks at the “Novomoskovsk-Samarivka” section. “Police forces succeeded to prevent the terrorist act and seize TNT blocks, IT and communications equipment that the militants used to contact their coordinators,” the ATO spokesperson said.

Ukrainian police also confiscated a Kalashnikov rifle, Makarov gun, two F-1 grenades and ammunition from a resident of Dzerzhynsk who stored weapons in his own apartment. “We remind that the month-long action of voluntary disarmament is underway for those who have unregistered weapons and ammunition. These individuals can give away their arsenals and be absolved from criminal liability,” Col. Lysenko emphasized.