Reuters/Kiev/Donetsk
Ukraine said yesterday that its troops had wrested more territory from pro-Russian rebels, advancing towards the site where Malaysian flight MH17 was brought down, which international investigators said they could not reach because of the fighting.
Troops recaptured two rebel-held towns near the crash site and were trying to take the village of Snezhnoye, near where Kiev and Washington say rebels fired the surface-to-air missile that shot down the airliner with loss of all 298 on board, Ukrainian officials said.
One pro-government militia said that 23 of its men had been killed in fighting in the past 24 hours, while a rebel commander said he had lost 30 soldiers.
The separatists are still in control of the area where the plane was shot down but fighting in the surrounding countryside has been heavy as government forces try to drive them out.
Yesterday at least three civilians were reported killed in overnight fighting, and Kiev said its troops recaptured Savur Mogila, a strategic piece of high ground about 30km from where the Malaysia Airlines Boeing hit the ground, and other areas under rebel control.
Rebels denied Savur Mogila had been lost, saying fighting was continuing.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, Andriy Lysenko, said that Kiev was trying to close in on the crash site and force the rebels out of the area but was not conducting military operations in the immediate vicinity.
He said that Ukrainian troops were now in the towns of Torez and Shakhtarsk, both formerly held by the rebels, while fighting was in progress for Snezhnoye and Pervomaisk.
The towns are all located in rolling countryside near the wheat and sunflower fields filled with debris from the downed airliner.
Government troops were also readying an assault on Horlivka (also spelled Gorlivka), a rebel stronghold north of the provincial capital Donetsk.
“The Ukrainian military is conducting an active assault on regions under temporary control of Russian mercenaries,” Lysenko told a news conference in Kiev.
In Donetsk, local officials said artillery fire had damaged residential blocks, houses, power lines and a gas pipeline.
The city, with a pre-war population of nearly 1mn, has largely become a ghost town since rebels dug in for a stand in the face of advancing Ukrainian troops.
In Luhansk, another rebel stronghold, local officials said 93 civilians had been killed in the last month’s fighting.
The downing of the Malaysian airliner has led to calls for much tougher action against Russia from Western countries who had previously imposed sanctions but only on small numbers of individuals and firms.
European Union member states were expected to try to reach a final deal today on stronger measures that would include closing the bloc’s capital markets to Russian state banks, an embargo on future arms sales and restrictions on energy technology and technology that could be used for defence.
The EU added new names on Friday to its list of individuals and companies facing travel bans and asset freezes over their alleged involvement in Ukraine.
Germany, which had been reluctant to agree tougher sanctions because of its trade links with Russia, said the downing of the airliner meant such measures were now necessary.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States agreed yesterday that they would take further measures against Russia over Ukraine, France said.
Russia played down the impact of sanctions.
“We can’t ignore it. But to fall into hysterics and respond to a blow with a blow is not worthy of a major country,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Washington says Moscow has stepped up its support for the rebels since the plane was shot down, including sending more heavy arms and firing across the frontier.
The Russian defence ministry cast doubt on pictures Washington said showed Russia had shelled Ukrainian military positions.
A picture taken yesterday in the Ukrainian city of Lisichansk, in the Luhansk region, shows weapons and ammunition captured from volunteer battalions
