Ukraine: More Than 1500 Ceasefire Violations Reported in a Single Day
New Delhi: The current situation in Ukraine does not look good as violation activities surge there. Conflict of Ukraine with Russia over political issues may be a reason for the invasion, experts said.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a European security body, on Saturday reported more than 1,500 ceasefire violations in east Ukraine in a single day, the highest number this year.
In a report covering attacks on Friday, its monitors recorded 591 breaches in Donetsk and 975 violations in neighbouring Lugansk, two regions partly held by Russian-backed separatists.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy experienced the clashes first-hand Saturday, ducking for cover as mortar shells fell within a few hundred metres of him while he toured the frontline with reporters.
However, Russia on Sunday rescinded earlier pledges to pull tens of thousands of its troops back from Ukraine’s northern border, a move that US leaders said put Russia another step closer to launching what they said was the planned invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s action extends what it said were military exercises, originally set to end Sunday, that brought an estimated 30,000 Russian forces to Belarus, Ukraine’s neighbour to the north. They are among at least 150,000 Russian troops now deployed outside Ukraine’s borders, along with tanks, warplanes, artillery, and another war materiel.
(_Vinayak)
