Ukraine Day 936: LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
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An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
The Ukrainian ATO [Anti-Terrorist Organization] reported today at 6:00 am that “on the whole” the new September 1 “quiet regimen” was being observed. But Russian-backed forces nonetheless fired 30 times on Ukrainian positions, which is as many as they have some days when there was no extra “quiet regimen”. (There is supposed to be a general cease-fire under the Minsk accords reached last year, but this has been rather tattered in recent months.)
On the Luganskoye line, 15 “violations” were counted as militants fired from machine guns, small arms and grenade-launchers on Novoaleksandrovka, Novozvanivtsi and Popasnaya. A sniper sired on Novoaleksandrovka.
At 18:00, the ATO reported on its Facebook page that the situation had “signs of de-escalation.” There were 14 violations of the quiet regimen by the Russian-backed forces, notably on the Mariupol line with firing on Granitnoye with small arms and on Vodyanoye with grenade-launchers.
On the Lugansk line, militants fired 5 times with grenade-launchers and machine guns on Novozvanitvtsi; 120-mm artillery was used on Novozvanitvtsi.
On the Donetsk line, there were 6 incidents, with firing on Avdeyevka and Verkhnetoretskoye from grenade-launchers, machine guns and small arms.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces held a festival today in Slavyansk on the anniversary of its liberation two years ago in July 2014. They held a children’s drawing contest on the theme, “I am drawing a peaceful tank.” The army organized other games and contests and gave the children army kasha and sweets. Children decorated the BTRs with balloons and paper flowers.
In other news:
o Nearly 2,500 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed in Combat
At least 2,491 Ukrainian service people were killed in combat in the war in the last 2 years; an additional 1,294 non-combat service people were killed, according to Anriy Verba, head of the MILitary Medical Department of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, UA Today reported.
Ukrainian journalists and some military have disputed the figure as too low. While the official number of fatalities for the Battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014 was 366, both military and civic leaders believe there were at least 1,000 killed as many are still missing.
o American Gets ‘Passport’ from ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’
Monson came to Lugansk in connection with a festival to celebrate the 221st anniversary of the city, ZN.ua reported. He said he was happy to become a “citizen” of the LNR and had personally applied to Plotnitsky for the passport.
– Catherine A. Fitzpatrick