Brutal airstrikes ever, Ukraine warplanes shot down by pro-Russia rebels over border Ukraine crisis. a Ukrainian military helicopter has been shot down by rebels over Slavians commit heavy fighting around the insurgent-held city in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine's acting president said 14 people on board, including an army
general, were killed when the helicopter was shot down on Thursday.
He told the parliament in Kyiv that rebels used a portable air defense
missile to down the aircraft. An associated press reporter witnessed the
helicopter being shot down, it was not immediately clear exactly where it
fell.
Sloviansk has become the center of fighting between pro-Russia insurgents
and government forces in recent weeks.
The city located 100 miles 160 kilometers west of the Russian border has
seen constant clashes in its residential areas have often come under mortar
shelling from government forces, prompting some residents to flee.
The Kyiv government has condemned the insurgency in east Ukraine as the work
of terrorists, bent on destroying the country, and blames Russia for
fomenting it.
Moscow denies the accusations, saying it has no influence over rebels who
insist they are only protecting the interests of the Russian-speaking
population of the east.
However, fighters from Russia, including the battle-hardened region of
Chechnya have been appearing recently in the ranks of the separatists.
A tense standoff developed on Thursday afternoon outside the Donetsk
regional administration building, which pro-Russian rebels have been
occupying since April.
The dispute between locals and a group including many volunteers from Russia
appeared to be a sign of growing divisions within the rebel camp. Armed and
masked men of the Vostok battalion including a large contingent of Russians
who were greeted as heroes when they appeared in Donetsk on Sunday arrived
at the building in cars, a van, and a fighting infantry vehicle.
They set up a perimeter around the barricades and trained their machine guns
on the regional HQ while snipers appeared briefly on a nearby apartment
building roof. One of the commanders of the men outside the building who
identified himself only as maxim said they had come to resolve a dispute
about looting.
Negotiations are taking place he said, I can't say how they will end Claudia
Kolbatskaya, a spokeswoman for the self-declared Donetsk people's republic
said the Vostok battalion men were checking rebels from the Donbas people's
militia who had been accused of looting yesterday.
She denied there was a power struggle between different rebel groups and
didn't know what punishment could be meted out to the violators.
Advertisement it's purely a struggle against looting, she said.
Pro-Russian rebels and local citizens in Donetsk began to bury their dead on
Thursday after vicious fighting with Ukrainian government forces on Sunday
and Monday.
Morgue workers and rebels outside the Kalinin Morgue said more than 50
people had been killed in the fighting near the Sergey Prokofiev airport
outside the city. At least one civilian was reportedly killed in the
crossfire, but most of those deaths were volunteer fighters from Russia,
including members of a group from the Chechen republic, where Russia put
down two bloody insurgencies in the 1990s and early 2000s.
A member of the Vostok battalion said 33 Russian citizens had been
identified among the dead. 30 coffins were stacked outside the morgue.
Alexander Boridi the prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk people's
republic, told journalists that the 33 bodies would be taken in a convoy to
be buried in Russia.
The Vostok battalion fighter, a Russian citizen who identified himself only
by his nickname, ram said he had known several of those killed. He accused
Ukrainian forces of shooting at civilians and said heavy losses at the
airport had only hardened the rebel's resolve.
No one is talking about surrendering, they've gotten angry and this will be
reflected in battle, he said adding that the rebels' ranks were growing.
A group of residents took the body of mark Zavariev, 43 a taxi driver who
was killed with pro-Russian forces near the airport on Monday to a local
cemetery to be buried.
Zavarayev left behind a wife a teenage son and a teenage stepdaughter,
according to friends.
Tatiana Cuozzo de Venko, a nursery school teacher who previously taught
Zavarayev's stepdaughter English said tragedies such as his death were
further inflaming feelings the key of government, which many locals already
view with deep mistrust.
"Anger is growing," she said, first there was bewilderment and disbelief but
it's now turning into anger.
Also on Thursday, an insurgent leader in eastern Ukraine who said his
fighters were holding four observers from the organization for security and
cooperation in Europe promised that they would be released imminently.
