A Donbas Volunteer Battalion member trains in the woods of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
© Kostyantyn Chernichkin
Outnumbered six-to-one, at least one Ukrainian Donbas Volunteer Battalion member was killed and 20 were wounded in an ambush by 150-200 pro-Russian separatists in the village of Karlivka, 35 kilometers northwest of Donetsk, the quasi-military unit’s press center said.
An unspecified number were captured, the press center added. Reporting from Karlivka, Agence France-Presse stated that at least four separatists were also killed in the same confrontation.
The ambush took place around 6 a.m. on May 23 while the group was approaching a separatist-held checkpoint near a dam reservoir next to the village where usually “7-10 people stood guard,” Semyon Semenchenko, the group’s leader, told 112 Ukraina television channel.
Instead up to 200 Kremlin-backed separatists surrounded the battalion and used automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire from rifles, he posted on Facebook. An hour later, the separatists were reinforced by an armored personnel carrier, heavy machine guns and grenades.
“Just 15 kilometers from here in the direction of Krasnoarmiysk there is a Ukrainian military checkpoint with four armored personnel carriers,” Semenchenko posted to Facebook. “We can’t get to our (surrounded) comrades, there is sniper fire. All of my calls to military commanders have fallen on deaf ears.”
Relaying a telephone message from Semenchenko on Facebook, military expert and blogger Dmitry Tymchuk later said “well-trained Chechen forces" were among the separatists.
Fighters from the nationalist group Praviy Sektor subsequently joined the fight and succeeded in partially breaking the encirclement to allow the core of the Donbas Battalion to escape, said Praviy Sektor leader Dmytro Yarosh on Facebook.
“We have [an unspecified number] killed in action, many are wounded…our marines came,” posted Yarosh.
He complained of help not coming sooner to the Donbas Battalion: “Again, either the counterterrorist operation leadership is incompetent or they are traitors…again, our boys have too few weapons, are ill-equipped, while the terrorists have superior arms.”
The press center of the Donbas Battalion would not confirm or refute reports that Right Sector members arrived to help.
Meanwhile, the press service of the Right Sector says that four soldiers of the Donbas battalion were captured, or killed. About two thirds of the group – around twenty men – were wounded. There were no losses among the Right Sector fighters, but two soldiers received light injuries, Interfax Ukraine reported.
The wounded were taken to the military checkpoint near Krasnoarmiysk.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at rachkevych@kyivpost.com.
