“The operation’s command will under no circumstances do the militants’ bidding and unilaterally scale down the security of the city and the region as a whole, Serhiy Galushko told the Kiev-based Channel 112 TV, adding that the Ukrainian forces were allegedly coming under “rebel” fire as many as 60 times a day.
Earlier on Sunday the Donbass voluntary battalion sent in reinforcements to Shirokino, with the battalion commander Semyon Semenchenko saying the village was now fully under the control of the Kiev forces.
During a telephone conference call on April 30, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko acknowledged “certain progress achieved in maintaining the ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the conflict zone.”
The leaders also endorsed the Ukrainian leader’s proposal to “demilitarize” Shirokino and set up an OSCE observation point there.
