Eight Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and ten wounded in attacks by Russian-backed forces in the Donbas war zone in the past 24 hours, according to Ukraine’s military reports on July 20.
Four servicemen were killed in an artillery strike near Krasnohorivka at 4.00 a.m., the military press center says in an updated communique on recent casualties.
Earlier, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Russian occupying forces engaged mortars, artillery, tanks and Grad-P rocket systems against Ukraine’s positions near the city.
One Ukrainian soldier was taken prisoner, and seven more were wounded in combat as of 4 p.m., the press center says.
Earlier, it was reported that four other Ukrainian soldiers had been killed overnight into July 20: three died and three were wounded by an explosive device that went off near the village of Novotoshkivske in Luhansk Oblast, and another Ukrainian soldier was killed by a sniper, the Ukrainian military said, without specifying the location.
With eight servicemen reported killed, the Ukraine’s armed forces on July 20 sustained the heaviest single-day losses in 2017.
There has been an increase in the intensity of the clashes with Russian-backed forces in the war zone, according to a military press center communique dated July 19.
In Luhansk Oblast, exchanges of fire with heavy machine guns and grenade launchers were reported in Stanytsya Luhanska, and Novozvanivka, despite a “Harvest Cease-fire” having been declared on June 24 to allow important agricultural work to go on in the war zone.
Russian-backed forces have also repeatedly used armor, with infantry fighting vehicles being used in combat near the towns of Novozvanivka and Luhanske in Luhansk Oblast, the Ukrainian military said.
In Donetsk Oblast, Russian-backed forces fired 82-millimeter mortars at Ukrainian positions in the villages of Hnutove and Vodyane, to the northeast of the Ukrainian-held port city of Mariupol. And even more powerful 120-millimeter mortars were used by Russian-backed forces in attacks on Ukrainian positions in the village of Pisky, just northwest of Russian-occupied Donetsk.
Civilians living close to the front line behind Ukrainian defensive positions were also caught up in the fighting. At 7.30 p.m., residential districts of Maryinka were targeted by heavy machine guns and grenade launchers, with a building in a back yard being set on fire, Ukraine’s delegation in the Joint Coordination and Control Center, a military liaison body, reported late on July 19.
Moreover, at 5.00 a.m. on July 20, enemy tanks while directing fire on Ukrainian forces hit residential buildings in Krasnohorivka, a Ukrainian-held town just west of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk. The JCCC says a projectile hit a five-floor apartment block, causing a serious fire.
“Only by some miracle were none of the residents hurt,” the Ukrainian military press center quoted soldiers in the area as saying early on July 20.
As reported previously, two Ukrainian servicemen were killed and four wounded in fighting on July 18-19.
