Seven Ukrainian Soldiers Killed in One Day, Enemy Accumulating Heavy Weapons

The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov said that militants in Donbas intensified their shelling of Ukrainian positions as prohibited by the Minsk Agreements, his press service reports.

He underlined that in the previous 24 hours, seven Ukrainian servicemen died and nine were wounded because of shelling, which is the biggest number in the past year. At the same time, the Presidential Administration spokesperson on the ATO Oleksandr Motuzianyi informed that the cause of losses were both shelling and explosive devices.

Oleksandr Turchynov said that Russia was reading to intensify the conflict. According to Turchynov, this is proven by the accumulation of heavy weapons along the contact line and the increase in use of UAVs, both for reconnaissance and attack. He said that UAVs were launched not only from non-government-controlled territories, but also directly from the Russian Federation.

He added that Russia thus was "discrediting all joint peace efforts in a cynical way" and that "a policy of appeasement of the aggressor instead of introducing harsher sanctions and other real actions will lead to an increase in the number of victims both among Ukrainian servicemen and among civilians and increase the danger of full-scale military actions in Europe provoked by the Kremlin."

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda