Ukraine's Poroshenko says Kiev will destroy rebels behind missile attack

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11-07-2014 | 04:58
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Ukraine's Poroshenko says Kiev will destroy rebels behind missile attack
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Ukraine's Poroshenko says Kiev will destroy rebels behind missile attack

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Kiev would "find and destroy" the pro-Russian separatists responsible for a high-powered missile attack that possibly killed 30 Ukrainian servicemen on Friday.

"For every soldier's life, the militants will pay with scores and hundreds of their own. Not a single terrorist will avoid responsibility, each will get what they deserve," he said in a statement on his website following an emergency meeting of security chiefs.

Meanwhile, Zoryan Shkyryak, an adviser to Interior Minister Arseny Avakov said a separatist rebel attack with Grad missiles in eastern Ukraine may have killed as many as 30 soldiers and border guards on Friday and final casualties may be even higher.

"Up to thirty (were killed). It is not excluded that the number of victims will rise because these blood-thirsty scum despicably shot from Grad (missile) systems and there is destruction," he said speaking at a news conference.

Earlier, four Ukrainian servicemen and five coal miners were reported killed in the east of the country, where government forces are fighting pro-Russian separatists.

The miners were killed after the bus they were traveling in came under mortar fire, Ukrainian television reported a doctor as saying, in the region of Chervonopartizansk near the border with Russia.

"Two soldiers and at least one border guard were killed after their armored vehicle drove over a landmine near Dovzhansky on Ukraine's border with Russia."

Military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov said a soldier was also killed in an incident near the town of Karlovka in the region of Donetsk, the main city where rebel fighters are holding out against the government forces.

He said at least 50 separatist fighters had been killed in the last few days following air strikes against rebel positions near the border with Russia.

There was no immediate comment from the rebels.

The government forces have gained the upper hand in the three-month-old conflict in the Russian-speaking eastern regions in which more than 200 government troops have been killed as well as hundreds of civilians and rebel fighters.

In diplomacy to end the worst Russia-West crisis since the Cold War, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone on Thursday to exert pressure on the separatists to de-escalate the violence.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told US Vice President Joe Biden that Russia and Ukrainian separatists had refused multiple proposals by Kiev for venues to negotiate a ceasefire, the White House said.

Rebels armed with heavy machine guns took positions late on Thursday around the airport controlled by Ukrainian forces in the industrial hub of Donetsk. Shots were heard overnight.

"Last night for an hour there was shelling against Ukrainian servicemen at the Donetsk airport," Seleznyov wrote on his Facebook page.

Poroshenko has ruled out air strikes and artillery bombardment because of the large civilian population in Donetsk.

But the Ukrainian military say they have a plan to deliver a "nasty surprise" to the rebels and take back their main strongholds, Donetsk and Luhansk.


REUTERS

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