4 Ukrainians wounded in artillery shelling in Donetsk

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By Chris Covert 

Fighting in the recently captured Gladosovo and Travnevoye villages and shelling in key parts of the line of contact continued as five Ukrainian soldiers were wounded and one rebel soldiers was killed according to Russian language news accounts. 

 On Friday night, according to Russian backed rebel media in Donetsk, a Ukrainian seven man patrol was caught near Dolomitoye attempting to infiltrate the line of contact south. Dolomitoye is near Gorlovka and Gladosovo. According to the news release, two Ukrainian effectives were killed, as the other five escaped back to their lines. 

 Rebels media reported that Ukrainian site commanders in Gladosovo and Travnevoye have detained a number of civilians in the two towns, two of them charged with reporting to rebel commanders as artillery damage assessors. According to Donetsk ministry of defense spokesman, Colonel Eduard Basurin, Ukrainian commanders are talking about using the detainees as human shields. 

 Reports in the Russian sponsored Russkaya Vesna news outlet said that looting continues to occur in Gladosovo and Travnevoye, and that Ukrainian commanders are promising their soldiers to permit looting in exchange for capturing rebel held villages.

 Ukrainian media has not addressed the charges to date. 

 Russkaya Vesna also reported that Ukrainian artillery fire struck rebel positions at the Donetsk airport, Spartak and the Yasinovataya checkpoint Monday night. 

 Russkaya Vesna also said that on Monday night, Ukrainian heavy artillery fire hit rebel positions at Logvinovo south of the Svetlodarsk arc. An hour later, Ukrainian artillery hit rebel positions to the east of Svetlodarsk at Pervomaisk, and Stakhanov, both of which are key positions for the rebels in Lugansk. 

 In lb.ua, however, a report said that on Sunday, five Ukrainians were wounded in rebel shelling in a number of locales in both Donetsk and Lugansk. The report said that rebel mortar and heavy weapons fire hit the Lugansk villages of Krymskoye, Novotoshkovskiy, Travnevoye, Svetlodarsk, Luganskoye and Zaitsevo. 

The lb.ua report goes on to state that heavy fighting took place in Avdievka, where rebels fired more than three dozen 82mm mortar shells, including mines. 

  Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraine by clicking here and here