49 Ukrainian Troops Killed as Rebels Shoot Down Plane
In what is the deadliest incident for Ukraine soldiers sent from Kiev to battle separatist forces in the east of the country, 49 military personnel were killed on Saturday as their transport plane was shot down by anti-aircraft fire in the city of Luhansk.
Vladislav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the military operation in east Ukraine, told Reuters by phone: “Forty-nine people were killed. All were Ukrainian military personnel.”
The latest violence will likely intensify clashes in the eastern regions where Ukrainians opposed to the Kiev government continue to resist its authority as they clamor for autonomy and closer ties with neighboring Russia.
As Reuters reports:
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Agence France-Presse reports that An estimated 270 people have been killed in the violence over the past two months.
On Friday, the U.S. government—which has strongly backed the Kiev government and endorsed the newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko—accused Russia of sending weapons into eastern Ukraine. According to the Guardian, “Friday’s statement from the U.S. State Department “did not explicitly blame Russia for supplying the weaponry directly to the Ukrainian separatists. But it stated Washington’s unequivocal belief that the tanks had crossed the border and hinted at Moscow’s complicity.”
The Associated Press reports:
Clashes in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, also on Friday, reveal continued and widespread unrest across those portions of the country with no end in sight. So far, talks between Kiev and separatist leaders in the east have gone nowhere and a tentative financial settlement over gas payments owed by Ukraine to Russia have stalled.
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