Donetsk, Feb 16 — DAN. The Donetsk People’s Republic militia has published a video on Thursday showing a makeshift morgue in a Maryinka cellar with piles of dead Ukrainian servicemen, apparently abandoned by the retreating enemy.
“The situation remains tense with the fighting taking place round the clock, ” said a 1st Donetsk Army Corps officer, call sign “Shanghai, ” who participates in Maryinka clashes. “Our main forces make gains day by day. The enemy is suffering tremendous losses, especially in our artillery attacks.”
On this axis, Russian army units advance meter by meter literally gnawing through Ukrainian defenses which they had been organizing here for several years. Ukrainian military equipment is knocked out together with the hardware supplied to Kiev by its western allies. The video shows a wrecked self-propelled howitzer of Australian origin.
“That’s ‘Lend Lease’ for Ukraine from Australia. You can see a kangaroo and the Ukrainian flag on the side. Australia supplies equipment to Ukraine along with the West. Our advancing forces burnt it together with the crew, ” the officer said. “The headset, also of western origin is the only thing which is left.”
The enemy is suffering big losses in Maryinka but is trying to conceal it. Russian fighters showed the cellar of a recently captured building with piles of dead Ukrainian gunmen. The cellar is littered with empty ammunition boxes, documents and fragments of uniforms. Some 50 dead bodies have been dumped here, some of them are in plastic bags.
Maryinka is the center of the district that borders on Donetsk in the southwest. Ukrainian forces have regularly shelled Donetsk from their positions in Maryinka throughout the whole Donbass conflict. The fighting for Maryinka has continued for several months. Latest reports said that Russian troops controlled practically the whole town.*jk