Kyiv, 5 February 2015 – Ukrainian servicemen are successfully repelling attacks of the Russian and insurgent troops. “The Ukrainian Army destroyed 190 militants and 7 units of military equipment. Ukrainian servicemen keep holding their positions and rebuff the enemy at all directions,” said Anatoliy Stelmakh, spokesman for the ATO Staff, via Skype at a briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. Over the night from 4 to 5 February, militants fired at Ukrainian military positions 21 times. Russian proxies shelled Debaltseve, Luhanske, Tonenke and Novohryhorivka with multiple rocket launchers.
Additionally, militants fired 4 times at the Ukrainian Armed Forces positions at the Luhansk direction, 5 times at the Donetsk and once at the Mariupol directions. “Criminals used artillery and mortars. Ukrainian units retaliated with artillery strikes and forced the insurgents to cease their attacks,” added the ATO Staff spokesman. Debaltseve remains the center of the enemy’s onslaught. Pro-Russian militants stormed twice the positions of Ukrainian troops near Chornukhyne.
The situation in Debaltseve remains tense. Ukrainian positions are constantly shelled. “Ukrainian servicemen are not giving up a single meter of the Ukrainian land. Talks of encirclement or retreat of the Ukrainian military have no ground and do not correspond to the actual situation,” noted the ATO Staff spokesman at the briefing.
Militants fired 93 times at the ATO forces in the last 24 hours. “We have lost 5 Ukrainian servicemen, and 29 got wounded within the last day,” reported Vladyslav Seleznyov, acting spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.