Slavyansk: Ukraine’s military suffered heavy casualties in a stepped-up offensive on pro-Russian rebels on Monday, as Europe and the head of the UN made a last-ditch diplomatic effort to reel the country back from the brink of civil war.
At least four Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 30 injured battling heavily armed insurgents around the flashpoint eastern town of Slavyansk as Russia warned the violence was putting peace in Europe in peril.
The interior ministry in Kiev said the pro-Russian gunmen controlling the town were using civilians as human shields and were shooting from houses, some of which were on fire.
“They are waging a war on us, on our own territory, my mission is to eliminate the terrorists,” interior minister Arsen Avakov told reporters from near Slavyansk where he was overseeing the assault.
The head of Ukraine’s national guard, Stepan Poltorak, said, “We have bottled them up in the centre” of Slavyansk, but added that “our adversaries are well-trained and well-equipped”.
The advance on Slavyansk was part of a wider military operation in the east to root out the separatist insurgents, who are holding more than a dozen towns. Russia, which denies any hand in the violence, warned that the unrest in Ukraine was now “fra-ught with such destructive consequences for Europe’s peace and stability.
