Ukraine Day 1282: LIVE UPDATES BELOW. President Petro Poroshenko announced a new TV tower placed with US assistance to broadcast into separatist-held areas of Lugansk Region.
Yesterday’s coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
Military armor brought to Kreshchatyk August 22, 2017 in anticipation of Independence Day parade August 24. Photo by Ukrinform
Fighting was reduced today as the four leaders of the “Normandy Quartet” (France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine) had a telephone conference call, Ukrainska Pravda reported. No casualties were reported.
Militants made 8 attacks in the previous reporting period, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing the ATO dispatch. While shooting was mainly from small arms, there were also reports of the use of 82-mm and 120-mm mortar-launchers near Maryinka. On the Maritime line, heavy machine guns pounded civilians areas around Krasnogorovka.
The Avdeyevka industrial zone and Kamenka fell under fire on the Donetsk line.
On the Lugansk line, grenade-launchers were used near Donets and Krymskoye.
Taras Gren, press officer for the Donetsk Operations and Tactical Group, said in a Facebook post that Russia-backed militants are deliberately setting fields on fire to damage civilian homes.
President Poroshenko announced today that Ukraine had opened a TV tower to provide broadcasting of Ukrainian television channels into occupied territory in Lugansk Region, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Said Poroshenko (translation by The Interpreter):
“The opening of the TV tower in Bakhmutovka is a step toward restoring the unity of Lugansk Region and all of Ukraine…Residents of the controlled territories and from the occupied cities and districts of Lugansk Region will return to the unifirmed information space of our Motherland.
A test of the new TV signal in Schastye failed, however, due to poor weather. But Ukrainian soldiers in Stanitsa Luganskaya said they were able to see the president’s speech o TV.
The tower was placed with US assistance, and will provide broadcasting of 11 TV channels and 4 radio channels into separatist–held areas of the Donbass.
Ukrainian border guards reported that two women travelling in a car that stopped at the Beryozovoye-2 checkpoint on the road from Donetsk to Mariupol were injured by a mine. The women got out of the car near the checkpoint and went into the woods, despite signs warning of mines in the area. They stepped on an explosive and suffered wounds to the head, back and legs. Border guards responded quickly to provide first aid, and the pair were taken to the hospital in Volnovakha where they were listed in fair condition.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
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