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Footage Shows Damage at Donetsk Airport
Footage Shows Damage at Donetsk Airport
Footage produced by “Army SOS,†a group linked to the Ukrainian army, apparently shot on Jan.15, shows aerial views of the damage to Donetsk airport after recent fighting.
Video by Army.SOS on Publish Date January 23, 2015. Photo by Reuters.
ARTEMOVSK, Ukraine — Envoys representing Ukraine, Russia and a European monitoring group opened a new round of cease-fire talks on Saturday aimed at ending a two-week-old flare-up in violence in the Ukraine war.
The talks have been halting. Plans to start on Friday fell through when no senior officials showed up in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where the negotiations are being held.
It was unclear how much could be done to tamp down violence and head off new sanctions; although a Russian envoy arrived for the talks, Russian-backed separatist leaders did not.
Even as Western governments have imposed economic sanctions on Russia for backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, Russia has insisted that it does not formally represent the rebels.
A negotiator representing the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, said the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics would not engage in cease-fire talks unless Ukraine declared a truce first.
The breakaway leaders, he said, would otherwise need to remain focused on fighting the war and protecting civilians in the rebellious regions, he said.
“Firing by Ukrainian government troops has to stop, because our leaders are fully involved in repelling attacks,†Mr. Pushilin said, Interfax reported.
The top Ukrainian, Russian and European envoys — former President Leonid D. Kuchma of Ukraine; Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Y. Zurabov; and a representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Heidi Tagliavini — met Saturday without the senior rebel leadership.
Mr. Kuchma, though, said he would negotiate in earnest only with the same separatist leaders who signed a mostly ignored cease-fire deal in September, adding that they were the ones who “have some power.â€
In Ukraine, the fighting has grown worse by the day.
Artillery shells exploded in Debaltseve, the Ukrainian-held town south of here that is surrounded on three sides by separatist forces and resupplied by only a single, tenuous 31-mile-long road.
Shelling in Debaltseve killed 12 civilians on Saturday, the police said. The day before, shells killed 14 people in Donetsk. Across eastern Ukraine over the past day, 15 Ukrainian soldiers died in fighting in the east, the country’s military said.
The latest updates to the current visual survey of the continuing dispute, with maps and satellite imagery showing rebel and military movement.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1DilGcw
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