Kyiv, 16 January 2015 – “The night in Donbas was not calm. Illegal criminal groups keep firing at the position of anti-terrorist operation (ATO) forces. Since 18.00 yesterday militants opened fire 38 times using heavy weapons. The Donetsk airport is controlled by Ukrainian servicemen. After 20.00 it has been relatively calm there,” informed Leonid Matyukhin, ATO spokesman via Skype at a briefing at the UkraineCrisisMediaCenter. At midnight militants shelled the air control tower with Grad multiple rocket launcher, later did not open fire till the morning. Until 00.30 militants were shelling localities nearest to the airport with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, afterwards it was quiet. Pisky and Tonenke suffered most from the shelling by illegal armed groups.
At other directions illegal armed groups shelled with Grad localities Shchastia, Krymske, Verkhnia Vilkhova, Tryokhizbenka and outskirts of Frunze. “They kept firing until 4am,” added ATO spokesman.
Biggest engagement occurred at the Debaltseve direction. Terrorists made an attempt to storm our checkpoints near Shumy, Leninske and outskirts of Novhorodske from Horlivka side. Ukrainian military rebuffed the militants’ attack. At the same direction around 00.30 illegal criminal groups shelled with Grad Ukrainian military positions near Otradivka locality.
In the last day illegal criminal groups fired a total of 82 times at ATO forces positions.
7 cases of aerial reconnaissance conducted with UAVs were observed near localities Olenivka, Novokalynove, Hornyak, Debaltseve, Donetsk and Mariupol. Additionally near Hlinka a UAV was spotted crossing Ukraine’s state border.
