Ukraine to end offensive in east soon
Iran Press TV
Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:48PM
The Ukrainian army has announced plans to wrap up the military offensive in eastern Ukraine within a month.
In an interview published on Thursday, Ukraine's army chief said hopefully the "active phase" of the military offensive against pro-Russians in the eastern region will be completed over the next month.
'The active phase will be finished in the near future... probably in less than a month,' chief of staff Viktor Muzhenko told weekly magazine Novoye Vremya.
The claim comes as Ukrainian forces are moving toward the strongholds of the pro-Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Government forces have made some gains in recent weeks, retaking more towns and cities from pro-Russia opposition forces.
On the other side of the conflict, according to Russian officials, dozens of Ukrainian soldiers have laid down their weapons and crossed into Russia's Rostov region, saying they refuse to fight against their own people.
Last Sunday, Russian Federal Security Service spokesperson Vasily Malayev said that 41 Ukrainian soldiers had entered Rostov a day earlier.
"41 Ukrainian soldiers left their military bases and arrived at the Ukrainian border crossing checkpoint Izvarino," said Malayev.
According to UN figures, the conflict has killed 1,129 people – most of them civilians - wounded 3,500 and forced over 100,000 to flee their homes.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's army and pro-Russia forces stopped fighting in the east for 24 hours following an appeal by the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, who called for a temporary truce.
We decided 'not to conduct military operations on this so-called 'day of quiet',' said Ukraine's military spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky.
The UN has demanded the operations in eastern Ukraine stop to give international inspectors a chance to access the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
'The families of this horrific tragedy deserve closure and the world demands answers -- international teams must be allowed to conduct their work,' the UN Secretary General was quoted by his spokesman as saying in a statement on Wednesday.
In the statement on Wednesday, Ban called 'on all parties to immediately halt hostilities in the proximity of the crash site so as to allow the international teams unimpeded access to the site.'
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 was reportedly shot down over Ukraine's volatile Donetsk region on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board. The plane was flying from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
MOL/AB
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
