Ukraine: Six Killed In Fierce Fighting Amid UN Frustration

(Vatican Radio) Ukraine's army says six of its servicemen have been killed and another 14 wounded in fighting against Russian-backed separatists in the former Soviet nation's war-torn east, while rebels claim as least two civilians were injured. The Ukrainian military suffered one of its highest reported casualty tolls in a single day since a ceasefire was called more than three months ago. 

Listen to this report by Stefan Bos

Army spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Saturday that the Ukrainian troops were killed and injured in the past 24 hours as a result of shelling by pro-Russian separatists and encounters with mines. 

He said fighting was especially fierce in the vicinity of the destroyed airport in Donetsk, the largest city under the control of Russia-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The area has been rocked by clashes between government forces and pro-Russian separatists with both sides accusing each other of 

provoking the fighting. Armed men could be seen shooting between ruins, backed by tanks.  

HEAVY ARTILLERY 

The Ukrainian military said rebels have been using tanks and heavy artillery to fire on residential buildings in the towns of Vodyane and Avdiivka, both of which are about five kilometers (three miles) from the airport, though rebels have denied wrongdoing.  

Earlier at least seven people -- five of them civilians -- were reported killed on Thursday and more than 35 died last week in exchanges of mortar and rocket fire across the buffer zone established between the sides' forces by the 

February ceasefire accord. 

Amid ongoing clashes, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has urged the United Nations Security Council to intervene and help restore an often violated ceasefire agreed in Minsk, Belarus. 

"Now our main expectation for defending Minsk agreements, for supporting the peace process, many of these initiatives are connected with the (United Nations) Security Council," he said. 

"I spoke about that with [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon [during] his visit, it was eight of May, and we try to do our best, at least to launch some process for the peacekeeping," Poroshenko added. 

POWER FRUSTRATED

He made the comments this week while meeting America's U.N Ambassador Samantha Power in Kiev, the capital. However Power has expressed her frustration over Security Council member Russia's alleged military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.  

“I’m extremely frustrated, above all with Russia and Russian aggression”, Power told the Kiev-based independent Hromadske.TV network. “The U.N. system, it is not a secret, is vulnerable when a founding, permanent member of the Security Council with a veto decides it is going to toss the U.N. Charter out of the window and try to take over a territory belonging to its neighbor,” she added.

Moscow has denied its active involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where some 6,500 people have been killed and more than two million residents displaced in over a year of fighting.

Closer to home, Ukrainian authorities are also dealing with the aftermath of a huge fire at an oil storage facility near Kiev, the capital, that killed at least six people this week. Two people were detained, amid concerns over possible arson or negligence.. The suspects were identified as Yuriy Shkvyra – deputy director of a fuel trading company and the acting manager of the plant’s owners, BRSM-Nafta – as well as an engineer. 

The plant’s owners said safety rules were respected and offered some 47,000 dollars in local currency for information on the cause of the blaze.