Ukrainian forces fought with pro-Russian separatists in the city of Donetsk for a second day on Tuesday after inflicting heavy losses on the rebels while the government vowed to press on with a military offensive "until not a single terrorist" was left. More than 50 pro-Russian rebels were killed.
"From our side, there are more than 50 (dead)," the prime minister of the rebels' self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Borodai, told Reuters at the hospital. A Reuters correspondent counted 20 bodies in combat fatigues in one room of a city morgue, some of them missing limbs.
Ukraine used air strikes and a paratroop assault on Monday to clear rebels from Donetsk's international airport and had pushed the separatists out of the complex by the end of the day. But shooting continued through the night, and on Tuesday the road to the airport bore signs of fighting overnight and heavy machine gun fire could be heard in the distance in mid-morning.
"The airport is completely under control," interior minister Arsen Avakov told journalists in the capital Kiev. "The adversary suffered heavy losses. We have no losses," he added.
"We'll continue the anti-terrorist operation until not a single terrorist remains on the territory of Ukraine," first deputy prime minister Vitaly Yarema said on the margins of a government meeting.
"We have 29 or 30 dead on our side but that is not the final count yet," said Dima Gau, a rebel representative, while another unnamed rebel at a morgue in Donetsk spoke of rebel deaths of 30 to 35.
Donetsk mayor Alexander Lukyanchenko said 40 people had been killed in the past day, 38 of the bodies being of those involved in fighting around the airport.
Offensive
Ukraine launched the fresh offensive against the rebels, who have occupied strategic points in Donetsk, an industrial hub of one million, and other towns in the east, after Kiev's newly elected leader rejected any talks with "terrorists".
Petro Poroshenko, a 48-year-old billionaire oligarch, won overwhelming support in Sunday's election that many hope will draw a line under six months of upheaval. He said a robust military campaign in the east should be able to put down a separatist revolt in "a matter of hours".
On the road to the airport, Reuters journalists saw blood-spattered and bullet-riddled hulks of trucks of the kind the separatist fighters have been using.
Though the rebels backing the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) had suffered serious losses, the heavy machine gunfire indicated that government forces were still facing resistance.
It was too early to say if the apparent military successes of government forces could break the rebellion in Donetsk, the first of a rash of such revolts across eastern Ukraine after months of turmoil in the capital that led to the ousting of the Moscow-backed president, Viktor Yanukovych.
In Donetsk on Tuesday a hockey stadium had been set ablaze, though firefighters now had it under control. A Kamaz truck of the type rebels use to ferry their fighters was wrecked on the airport road, covered in blood and completely riddled with bullet holes. Blood had spattered across the entire roadway and even reached a billboard seven metres above. Outside the city centre, another Kamaz was flipped over, its deck covered in blood.
The mayor reinforced warnings for people to avoid the airport area and said nine schools and two hospitals had been closed, with patients evacuated elsewhere. He reassured people that food and other supplies were still reaching the city.
Putin demands immediate halt to Ukrainian army action
Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Tuesday for an immediate halt to Ukraine's military operation against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
In his first reported comments on Ukraine since its presidential election on Sunday, the Kremlin quoted Putin as telling Italy's prime minister by telephone that dialogue between Kiev and representatives of the regions would help efforts to resolve the crisis.
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