Deadlier & Deadlier: Ukraine Forces Suffer Setbacks, Casualties

After a series of fierce fights, separatists pressed Ukrainian forces out of their positions at the nearly destroyed Donetsk Airport, taking over its new terminal. They also seized a checkpoint at the Bakhmutka motorway in Luhansk Oblast.

A total of 35 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and at least 24 Ukrainian soldiers were captured over the past week, according to Ukrainian officials. Volunteers and journalists working at the frontline say these figures are underestimates. The civilian death toll in the war zone reached at least 30 persons in the last week, according to Ukrainian officials and international nongovernmental organizations.

The biggest losses were suffered at Donetsk Airport, which had been held by Ukrainian troops for nine months for strategic and then mostly symbolic reasons.

Ukrainian authorities said on Jan. 22 that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the airport’s new terminal and currently only controlled the airport’s runway, measurement tower and fire department (see map on page 11). Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, said that fighting continued at Donetsk Airport.

Vladislav Seleznev, a spokesman for the General Staff, told the Kyiv Post that the Ukrainian soldiers would keep defending the measurement tower and several smaller facilities at Donetsk Airport despite the fact that they had been partially destroyed. “According to the Minsk agreements, Donetsk Airport is Ukrainian territory. This is our land, and we are fighting for it,” he said.

Vlad Chorny, commander of the Right Sector unit based in village of Pisky 1.5 kilometers from the airport, claimed that his battalion is ready to withstand separatists’ intensifying attacks. “This is war, and I don’t care if they strengthen the attacks. We will keep fighting,” he said.

A horrible tragedy occurred on Jan. 21, when separatists blew up the concrete ceiling of the new terminal of Donetsk Airport, killing or wounding many of its Ukrainian defenders. The famed “cyborgs” – a popular name for the airport’s defenders – had to leave the building after their fierce resistance.

“Our guys took out from there as many alive and wounded fighters as they could,” Chorny told the Kyiv Post. “It’s harder with those killed because we have to look for them under the enemy’s constant artillery shelling.”

Chorny added that two of his fighters were wounded in the morning.

At least 21 cyborgs were killed from Jan. 15 to Jan. 21 while defending Donetsk Airport, according to the Kyiv Post count – based on official reports and information from volunteers who equip Ukrainian soldiers.  Some 16 Ukrainian soldiers were wounded on Jan. 21, when Kremlin-backed insurgents took over Donetsk Airport’s new terminal, according to military officials.

Additionally, at least 24 Ukrainian fighters were captured over the past two days at the airport, according to data gathered by the Kyiv Post.

Lysenko said on Jan. 22 that 10 soldiers were killed in Donbas, 19 were wounded, and 16 more wounded soldiers were captured by separatists in the last 24 hours.

Separatists provide drastically different numbers. Eduard Basurin, an official at the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic’s Defense Ministry, claimed that 60 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed over that period and the rebels had lost only 8.

One of the wounded “cyborgs” who keeps in touch with his comrades fighting at the airport told the Kyiv Post that six soldiers of the 90th battalion were remaining under the rubble at the airport on Jan 21. He added that the connection was lost with those who managed to leave the collapsed building. “They could have been either captured or killed by now,” he said, asking not to give his name as he wasn’t authorized to talk to the press.

He said the rebels started using grenades with a nerve agent – a prohibited means of warfare – over the last weeks. “If there is vomiting it is definitely a nerve agent. If there is a closed building a person may faint over them,” he said adding that the rebels definitely used such grenades on Jan. 20.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe also said in a report released on Jan. 21, citing a Ukrainian soldier in a hospital in the city of Konstantyvivka, that 80 Ukrainian “cyborgs” had symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. “(The symptoms) manifested in uncontrollable muscle spasms, vomiting and difficult breathing. Some, he said, had become unconscious,” the OSCE reported.

Vitaly Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, promised at a news conference on Jan. 20 to hand over the dead bodies of Ukrainians killed at the airport to their commander.

“We will give them tribute, because they fought worthily… We respect them as enemy for their heroism and courage,” Zakharchenko said. In two days he handed over the dead bodies of eight Ukrainian soldiers and three war hostages to a Ukrainian colonel, Russian media reported.

But insurgents’ recent actions were far from respectful. They paraded the captured Ukrainian soldiers in the streets of Donestk on Jan. 22, violating the Geneva Convention’s ban on humiliation.

Video footage of pro-Kremlin LifeNews shows a brutal interrogation of captured Ukrainian soldiers at a Donetsk hospital. It outraged the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunya Miyatovich, who called it “unethical and inadmissible.”

At the same time, Kremlin-backed insurgents brought a captured commander of Ukrainian “cyborgs” on Jan. 22 to the bus stop in Donetsk shelled earlier on that day, blaming him for the deadly incident, insulting him and beating him up. The soldier was transported in a vehicle carrying a Russian Interior Ministry license plate.

During the shelling, eight to 15 civilians were killed, according to different sources cited by Amnesty International. Ukrainian authorities and Kremlin-backed insurgents exchanged accusations, blaming each other for the attack.

Lysenko said that, according to preliminary information, the bus stop had been shelled from a vehicle-mounted mobile mortar going around Donetsk. Ukrainian troops’ nearest positions are in Pisky, and mortars based there cannot shoot at such a distance, he added.

Donetsk Oblast was not the only area where Kremlin-backed insurgents gained ground earlier this week.

In neighboring Luhansk Oblast, the insurgents seized Ukrainian checkpoint 31 near the village of Krymske and attacked the nearby checkpoint 29, which is still controlled by Ukrainian forces, Selezynov said by phone.

Meanwhile, the city of Shchastia experienced the most intensive shelling during the war from Jan. 7 to Jan. 19, Ivan Makar, a member of the Aidar volunteer battalion, said by phone. He added that shelling had intensified after the recent arrival of Russian weapons masked as a humanitarian aid convoy. Another Aidar fighter, also named Ivan, told the Kyiv Post that a lot of new Grad multiple rocket launchers and tanks had arrived from Russia.

Lysenko said on Jan. 22 that about 50,000 Russian regular troops had been deployed recently in Russia near the border with Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said on Jan. 19 that Russia had recently sent two battalions across the border to Donbas. Lysenko said on Jan. 20 that three more battalions had invaded Ukraine.

President Petro Poroshenko also commented on the issue, saying on Jan. 21 that over 2,000 Russian regular troops and 200 military vehicles, including tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers, had just crossed the border into Ukraine. This increased the total number of Russian troops to 9,000 and the number of military vehicles to 500, he said.

Yuriy Sergeev, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, said at a Security Council meeting on Jan. 21 that a battalion of Russia’s 76th Air Assault Division from Pskov had been spotted near the Ukrainian villages of Georgiivka and Kumachovo, while a battalion of an Ulyanovsk-based paratrooper brigade had been seen close to the villages of Georgiivka and Peremoha. Meanwhile, battalions of the Maikop-based 76th Motorized Brigade and the Stavropol-based 49th Motorized Brigade are based in the Ukrainian town of Starobesheve, he said.

Oleksandr Turchynov, who heads the National Security and Defense Council, said on Jan. 22 that separatists backed by Russian regular troops have been building up their forces along the frontline in Donbas and preparing a large-scale offensive. Turhynov’s car was shelled by mortars on Jan. 21 near Donetsk Airport but he was not wounded.