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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Ukraine crisis: Rebels 'begin offensive' on Mariupol |
| 2015-01-25 |
| [BBC] Eastern Ukraine's main rebel leader says he has launched an offensive against the government-held port city of Mariupol. His comments came after a series of rocket attacks which Ukrainian media said had left 27 people dead and many others injured in the city. Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... hit a market in a residential eastern area of Mariupol, the city's police chief said. Since April, more than 5,000 people have died in fighting in the east. The rebels have seized a large swathe of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. More than a million people have been displaced. Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said on Friday that he did not want truce talks with Kiev. A ceasefire was agreed in Minsk in September but never fully took hold. Many hoped that the lower level of hostilities it introduced would last, but the BBC's David Stern says that the fighting is beginning to approach what was seen last summer. Mariupol has a population of 500,000 and is in a highly strategic position, sitting between rebel-held eastern areas and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia last March. The city saw heavy fighting in August. |
| Posted by:Fred |