Mashable – by Christopher Miller
KIEV, Ukraine — A fierce gun battle in eastern Ukraine erupted early Monday morning, killing at least five and wounding several others in the most recent flash of violence in the restive region.
Around 4 a.m. local time, a group of some 500 insurgents hit Ukrainian border guards in the town of Mirny, Luhansk region — about 12 miles from the Russian border — with a barrage of bullets from Kalashnikovs and heavy machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, the Ukrainian state border guard service reported.
At least five insurgents were killed and eight wounded, with seven Ukrainian servicemen injured in the firefight, the border guard service said.
How it played out
The insurgents fired from forested positions around the border guard base and from the rooftop and upper floors of a nearby apartment building, according to border guard service report. They also used a DShK heavy-machine gun in the fight. Amateur video published on YouTube appears to show the machine gun being transported by truck from the scene.
At around 4:30 a.m., a Ukrainian fighter jet was deployed to the area to assist border guards in the gun battle, but it was unable to open fire as the insurgents were concentrated between residential buildings, Ukrainian anti-terrorism operation spokesperson Vladyslav Seleznyov said via phone on Monday.
However, after the jet left the area, “the terrorists left their sheltered positions, which is when the jet returned to destroy their equipment and positions,” he said.
Seleznyov said the surprise insurgent assault, which lasted for more than eight hours, was an attempt to further destabilize the country’s border with Russia in order for rebel reinforcements and supplies needed to fuel the ongoing fight for eastern Ukraine to pass through more easily.
Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia is notoriously porous. Historically, it’s been a haven for smugglers. In recent weeks, several Russian insurgents have snuck through with little or no problems. Members of the pro-Russia Vostok Battalion toldMashable in Donetsk last week that they were able to cross from Russia into Ukraine by simply telling border guards that they were tourists.
As of 11 a.m. on Monday, the “terrorists continue to storm the Luhansk border guard coordination center… using their favorite Russian tactic of shooting at us from residential flats, roofs and using live shields,” said the border guard service.
The fight intensified throughout the morning and continued until around 1:30 p.m., when a truce was briefly called in order to retrieve the dead and wounded. Fighting resumed after about 20 minutes.
“The truce has ended. We evacuated four seriously wounded servicemen and the fighting resumed,” Ukrainian Border Service spokesman Oleh Slobodian told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
A spokesperson for the pro-Russia insurgent group told the news agency that the two sides “failed to negotiate an agreement and resumed the hostilities.”
Heavy gunfire can be heard in several amateur videos published to YouTube on Monday. Some show bursts of bullets and even an apparent rocket-propelled grenade being fired at the border guard headquarters.
One video apparently shows a wounded insurgent crawling on all fours away from the scene.
Another shows an insurgent shot in the head, allegedly by a Ukrainian sniper, while taking a position near an apartment building. In the video, the man’s hat can be seen flying off his head at the 0:19 mark.
Another side to the story
An alternative account of the gunfight was given by insurgent leaders in Luhansk to Russian state media.
The press service of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic told Itar-Tass news agency that its fighters were battling with the ultranationalist militant group Right Sector as well as the National Guard, which includes many protesters from last winter’s Euromaidan revolution in Kiev that overthrew the President Viktor Yanukovych and his government.
In Kiev on Monday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Derek Chollet said the United States is concerned by the escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine, adding that it is ready to help Ukraine strengthen its security and reform its armed forces.
The U.S. sees that there is terrorist activity in eastern Ukraine, which is destabilizing the situation in the country, he said. Of particular concern, he added, was the pro-Russia insurgents’ assault on border guards on Monday.
Monday’s battle marked merely the latest in a string of intense firefights in eastern Ukraine. President-elect Petro Poroshenko said after his election win more than a week ago that he plans to quash the insurgents in the east “in hours… not weeks.”
But the conflict escalated last week when insurgents shot down a Ukrainian military helicopter in the insurgent-held city of Sloviansk, killing 12 servicemen, including a general.
Last Monday, several dozen pro-Russia fighters, many from the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion, clashed with Ukrainian military forces at the Donetsk airport in an attempt to seize the airstrip. The fierce gun battle there led to the deaths of more than 50 insurgent fighters, including 33 from Russia, Chechnya and South Ossieta.
Explosion at a government building kills five
As fighting continued Monday afternoon at the border guard headquarters, an explosion was reported near the regional government building in central Luhansk.
Insurgent leaders said that a Ukrainian airstrike there had killed five people. Kostiantyn Knyrin, chief of the insurgents’ Southeast Front information center for the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, told Interfax that a bomb hit the fourth floor of the government building.
“The bomb practically ruined the whole of the fourth floor,” he said. “Five people were killed. Many of the local civilians were wounded.”
The Ukrainian authorities did not release a statement Monday afternoon regarding the incident. The video below appears to show some sort of rocket being fired from ground-level and exploding in front of the regional government building.
Some witnesses told local media that it was a misguided rocket-propelled grenade fired by insurgents that hit the building.
There was no confirmation of either an airstrike or a rocket blast causing the explosion. What is known is that one did take place, and several people were injured.
At least two persons were killed in the blast, head of the Luhansk health department Pavlo Malysh told Interfax-Ukraine.
“The number of injured is being specified now. Two were killed for sure,” he said, adding that more than 10 wounded persons had already been taken to a nearby hospital and that the ambulances were still carrying people from the scene of the blast.
Police say they still don’t know the cause of the explosion.
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