Yesterday, it was reported that Ukrainian forces had lost control of their foremost position, checkpoint 31, on the strategically important Bakhmutka highway, in the west of the Lugansk region, after an assault by Russian tanks.

The commander of the volunteer-based Donbass battalion, Semyon Semyonchenko, announced today that one Ukrainian soldier was killed and seven wounded during the attack which, he said, had practically destroyed the 31st checkpoint. One Russian tank was reportedly destroyed in the battle. The 29th checkpoint also came under artillery fire.

UNIAN reported:

“At around 1900, January 20, seven people were reported wounded and one dead,” Semyonchenko said. “Less than a kilometer away from checkpoint No. 29, in the village of Zholobok, the intelligence services spotted Russian military, that is, the Russian army personnel,” Semyonchenko said. In addition, according to him, there are reports of the movement of armored vehicles from the Luhansk area towards checkpoint No. 29. Semyonchenko also said that civilian settlements, namely, Trekhizbenka, Shchastia, Stanitsa- Luganska, Krymske had been badly hit by the fighting. According to him, Ukrainian reinforcements have arrived. Communications in the area have been severely disrupted, and the situation is made more difficult by poor weather conditions and intense shelling.

The press office of the governor of the Lugansk region, Hennadiy Moskal, announced that the wounded from the 31st checkpoint had been taken to a hospital in Lysychansk, to the north.

Today, Ukrainian government and military sources reported that fighting continues in the area.

Censor.NET reports that Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), told reporters at a briefing today in Kiev that the offensive by Russian and separatist fighters in the area had been stopped.

Lysenko said that after the battle at the 31st checkpoint, Ukrainian troops had retreated to a defensive position and, having received reinforcements and ammunition, returned to fight to retake the territory lost.

UNIAN reported that the secretary of the NSDC, Oleksandr Turchynov, had told journalists that “the situation in the combat zone is very difficult,” but that the 29th checkpoint remains under Ukrainian control.

Turchynov claimed that the ongoing combat in the area meant that the attack on the 31st checkpoint had “failed.”

“At the same time, last night’s attempted attacks on the positions of the Ukrainian military on the checkpoints No. 31 and 29 failed. Checkpoint No. 29 is fully controlled by Ukraine, and fighting is under way in the area of checkpoint No. 31.”

The spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s ATO, Leonid Matyukhin, described the withdrawal from the 31st checkpoint in somewhat franker terms, saying that the decision had been made by commanders on the ground so as to save the lives of their soldiers.

— Pierre Vaux