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Europe |
Your rebellion needs you, plead Ukraine insurgents |
2014-05-20 |
[The Peninsula] Rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine launched a desperate appeal yesterday for more fighters to join their insurgency against Kiev's rule, saying even women were welcome. "We have achieved victories and more are to come," boasted Denis Pushilin, a leader of the self-declared "People's Republic of Donetsk" at a rally in the main city in Ukraine's eastern industrial belt. But he added: "We need strong men to protect our republic because civil war is raging in our region. "Many men are falling every day, so we need more." He gave no specific figures on the number of casualties among rebel ranks, although fighting is reported almost every night around krazed killer flashpoints such as Slavyansk. The United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... said in a report on Friday that 127 people had been killed in fighting in the east since the pro-Russian separatists took up arms against the central government in Kiev in early April. Pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and the neighbouring region of Lugansk declared their own sovereign republics after claiming victory in independence referendums on May 11 that were denounced as illegal in Kiev and the West. The separatists in Donetsk have since set up their own parliament and a government headed by a shadowy Russian "consultant" called Aleksandr Borodai, and appealed to join the Russian Federation. Donetsk's "defence minister" Igor Strelkov, one of the top rebel commanders in the flashpoint city of Slavyansk, also took the unusual step of issuing a recruitment call in a video posted on YouTube. |
Posted by:Fred |