Fighting continues in Donetsk airport zone
DONETSK/KYIV/LUHANSK. Oct 7 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) militia staff has reported the ongoing hostilities in the Donetsk airport zone.
The staff said the Ukrainian army were holding on to several buildings, a part of underground utility systems and a belt of trees adjacent to the airport.
"The militia has launched a massive howitzer attack on the airport's old terminal where Ukrainian servicemen are staying. The strike started a fire in an ammunition depot and a series of explosions," the report said.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian artillery keeps shelling residential areas of Donetsk. The Oktyabrsky mine camp was shelled on Monday night, the DPR military department said.
"The 21st hospital area came under fire. A woman was killed. Casualties have been reported; their number is being verified," the source said.
"Tensions escalated in Avdiivka, Debaltseve and Novotoshkivka and Novotroitske, north of Volnovakha, by the night of October 6," the staff said.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning the staff of the army operation in eastern Ukraine wrote on Facebook that the militia continued attempts to storm the Donetsk airport and shelled the Ukrainian servicemen stationed on the airport premises.
The staff said the militia had also opened fire on roadblocks near the Shchastya heating and power plant, which supplies electricity to Luhansk. A Ukrainian patrol was attacked in the area of Kasyanivka, near Mariupol.
Most attacks on Ukrainian servicemen were reported from Debaltseve, the report said.
It also said the Ukrainian army had had losses. One Ukrainian serviceman was killed and another seven suffered injuries of differing degrees near the village of Staroihnatiivka.
The Donetsk City Council reported the death of four civilians and shrapnel injuries of more than ten persons in Donetsk over the past day.
A report posted on the Donetsk City Council website said the artillery shelled the Kyivsky district on Monday night.
Tensions persisted on Tuesday morning, the report continued.
Luhansk Region State Administration Chairman Hennadiy Moskal said in a report posted on his website that the situation in the Luhansk region had also exacerbated.
There was a series of artillery attacks on land controlled by Ukrainian servicemen and fatalities were reported, he said.
Mortars were fired at a National Guard roadblock near Bakhmutka on Tuesday morning, no one was hurt, he said.
On Monday, the militia shelled a 92nd brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces position near Vesela Hora in the Slovyanoserbsky district. Four Ukrainian servicemen were hurt.
Moskal confirmed the attack on Ukrainian positions near the Shchastya heating and power plant. He said three Ukrainian servicemen suffered injuries, one of them severe.
The report mentioned five police officers wounded in the shelling of the location of a combined unit of the Ternopil region police department in the town of Popasna by the militia.