The Ukrainian government is reporting that 21 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in an ambush yesterday evening near the town of Shakhtyorsk, the scene of heavy fighting for the last few days.

Ukrainska Pravda reports on the incident, citing the ATO press centre.

The ATO press centre said:

Overwhelming enemy forces, making use of the terrain in Shakhtyorsk, ambushed, and turned their weapons on our soldiers. The detachments, who were in the process of redeploying, suffered losses.

Ukrainska Pravda then report:

Later, sources from Hromadske TV, citing volunteers and the troops themselves, reported that 21 soldiers, including the commander of the 2nd battalion, were killed, and many wounded, during the shelling of military unit A1126. The wounded were transported by helicopter to Dnipropetrovsk. "I just had a call on my mobile from the Bruno Santos unit. According to them, they're being pounded from 4 sides with Grads. They said goodbye. They said that they had no chance, no one had brought them anything, there were no reinforcements or supplies," said the source.

A video was disseminated online which purportedly shows the aftermath of the ambush. The video is graphic and shows the bodies of a number of soldiers near a burnt out BMP-2. We have not yet geolocated this footage. (Note that the preview image is unrelated to the video.)



WARNING: Graphic



