Fragile new Ukrainian truce holds for 3rd day
INTERNECINE CONFLICT: Mortar and artillery fire has continued unabated without claiming any lives on both sides
KIEV: A new indefinite truce in Ukraine held by a thread for a third day Monday as both pro-Russian insurgents and Kiev reported clashes near a prized railroad hub but no deaths.
Ukraine and Russia — two ex-Soviet neighbours that are now sworn foes — agreed to the armistice on Wednesday with the help of mediation from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The rebels signed on to the ceasefire on Friday after some deliberation.
But mortar and artillery fire has continued unabated without claiming any lives. “Our positions came under attack 33 times since early Sunday,” the Ukranian military said in a statement.
The insurgents’ website said their side had come under fire from Ukrainian grenade launchers 62 times in the past day. Such weapons have been banned by a February 2015 peace agreement that both sides have long ignored.
Kiev and its Western allies view the eastern separatists as Russian proxies who have been fighting for 31 months to destabilise the Ukrainian government and keep it dependent on the Kremlin’s whims.
Moscow denies interfering in the conflict but international monitors have seen tanks and other heavy military equipment enter the Ukrainian war zone from Russia throughout the war.
In March 2014 Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula a month after the ouster of the Moscow-backed government in Kiev.
The latest truce came shortly after a battle for control of Debaltseve — a railway hub that links the pro-Russian regions of Lugasnk and Donetsk. Details are disputed but Kiev appears to have won back control of most regions around the town after an initial rebel assault. Debaltseve has been under separatist control since an immense January 2015 battle prompted Germany and France to step in and force all sides to agree to a peace deal the following month. But the war in the European Union’s back yard has raged on and now claimed nearly 10,000 lives.
Some analysts and officials feel this truce may last longer than the others because of its indefinite nature.
Moscow denies interfering in the conflict but international monitors have seen tanks and other heavy military equipment enter the Ukrainian war zone from Russia throughout the war.
MOSCOW: Russian divers on Monday found parts of the military plane that crashed in the Black Sea with 92 people onboard, a local official said. “The (plane) debris are at the depth of 27 metres one mile from the shore,” said Rimma Chernova, a spokeswoman for the Sochi-based search and rescue operations run by the Russian emergency ministry.
Russian news agencies had earlier quoted an unnamed official as saying that the fuselage of the plane had been found, a statement local authorities did not confirm when contacted.
Chernova added that divers were planning to use a remotely-operated diving machine to determine the precise coordinates and size of the plane parts in order to understand what to do next. Officials said earlier that the flight recorders that could contain information about the Tu-154 plane’s last moments before the crash were located in its tail.
The plane carrying 92 people, including over 60 members of the Red Army Choir, went down on Sunday minutes after taking off from the airport of southern resort city Sochi, where it was refuelling on its way to Syria.
Thousands of people and dozens of ships, helicopters and drones, including deep-water diving machines, are taking