The New Dark Age

4 July 2014 — Voice of Russia

Two Lugansk residents got killed and eight more sustained injuries as several apartment blocks came under fire on Thursday. An oncology center and a school were also damaged in the shelling, following Ukrainian president-elect Poroshenko’s refusal to prolong the 10-day ceasefire that he had announced earlier prior to the EU association agreement signing in Belgium.

After the truce formally ended on July 1, the Ukrainian army swiftly resumed massive attacks on the country’s south-eastern self-defense units.

The report on Thursday’s casualties reads as follows:

“On Thursday, a woman died after a projectile was fired at an apartment block at 1st Menzhinskaya street, one was injured and taken to the Lugansk regional hospital. Another man died in residential block 27 having sustained a gunshot wound.”

According to the latest updates, seven got injuries as several houses on a number of streets came under artillery attacks from on July 2 and July 3. In the most recent shellings of the oncology rehab and school no casualties were reported, though the buildings got partially ruined, the released documents say.

“@therussophile: #russia Armed standoff causes $100 million damage to Luhansk region — administration http://t.co/0wEtwjrQwm“

— FashVelRealOgraphy (@EmeraudeALB)

3 ???? 2014

Additionally, an electric substation was damaged in armed clashes between pro-federalization activists and Ukrainian forces in Kamennobrodsky and Zhovtnevy districs, which left over 5,000 people without electricity. Emergency measures are currently in place to deal with the shellings aftermath.

The Kiev authorities launched a military operation in Ukraine’ east in April, so as to combat a broad opposition to the February power takeover, which resulted in Ukrainian Yanukovich being ousted. After shellings swept through a number of southeastern areas, Lugansk and Donetsk residents held a referendum, with the majority speaking in favour of gaining independence from Kiev and setting up the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, or Novorossiya, as it’s now commonly referred to.

Moscow promptly responded by calling the special operation initiated by Kiev “punitive”, and demanding that the current Ukrainian authorities immediately halt it and sit down at the negotiating table with Ukraine’s south-eastern leaders.

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— Media Puls (@mediapuls)

2 ???? 2014

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— ?????? ???????? (@maximus2575)

2 ???? 2014

What’s underway in Ukraine and Novorossiya

Anti-governments rallies started in Ukraine’s southeast as early as in late February 2014 in response to the illegal seizure of power in Kiev and its tremendously unpopular Rada-introduced bill on ripping the Russian language of its status of a regional one. Donbass took the lead in pro-Russian activists’ rallies against Kiev, which have now reached its climax, with hundreds people, including civilians, killed in shellings.

In one of most recent attacks on Wednesday, ten died, a 5-year-old kid among them, in an artillery fire that hit a village in the Lugansk region.

Ukraine standoff melts into violence http://t.co/s78WoqYBmI

— Suzanne Altobello (@suzaltobello)

2 ???? 2014

Most severe clashes have been raging through the towns of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk outside on Donetsk outskirts. For the time being Slavyansk remains encircled, as the ties with the outer world were outright cut in the wake of attacks by Ukrainian militia groups. The forces go on shelling the area,with a great many residential blocks literally razed to the ground, the latest reports from the self-defense headquarters read.The day before the Ukrainian troops cut Slavyansk from neighboring Nikolaevka village, which served as a supply point for the town. Though, clashes still continue in Nikolaevka, the town of Slavyansk remains encircled, with its defense constantly targeted in massive howitzer attacks and artillery fires.