Ukrainian soldiers explain how they captured pro-Russian militants in Donbas
On May 20, Ukrainian soldiers captured three separatists during a raid in the vicinity of Holmivskyi in the Donetsk province. The captured fighters claimed that in the “armed forces” of the so-called “people’s republics” when they join the “ranks” their documents are taken away, and they are paid meager wages, the TSN reports.
The Ukrainian soldiers were able to approach the sepratists’ positions towards evening; it says a lot that the fighters were able to come close without a single shot being fired, and the separatists – who were drinking and chatting at their posts – were caught by surprise.
“A soldier, pretending to be a commander, made a remark to the terrorists about drunkenness on duty. He ordered them to go out into the street, and only then admitted to being a Ukrainian soldier,” the journalists were told.
The militants offered virtually no resistance.
“They looked sheepish when they were led out of the dugout. One of them began to do something with a weapon that was not loaded, but he was taken out,” a fighter from the Donbas-Ukraine battalion explained.
None of the militants had documents, and when asked why, they said that their passports had been taken away by the “leadership”.
The detainees were residents of Horlivka and Yenakiieve. The soldier who was taken out was a Russian national who had served in Ukraine in the “Berkut”. After Maidan he fled to the terrorists in the Donbas.
On May 21, news came out that a reconnaissance and sabotage group of the 46th Assault Battalion – the “Donbas” - had carried out a special operation in the late evening of May 20 in the enemy’s rear, in order to locate the enemy’s weapons which were being used to bombard civilian settlements. During the raid, the Ukrainian soldiers captured three separatists.
Over the course of May 20, the situation became difficult in the region where the Joint Forces Operation was being held, with ongoing intense fighting near Svitlodarsk, Horlivka, Donetsk and Mariupol. The Russian forces violated the ceasefire 55 times, using weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements on 19 of those occasions.