Ukraine Forces Battle for MH17 Crash Site
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Ukrainian armed forces mounted a major onslaught against pro-Russian separatist fighters in an attempt to gain control over the area where a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed earlier this month.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that a column of Ukrainian armored personnel carriers, trucks and tanks had entered the town of Shakhtarsk, 15 kms west of the site of the Boeing 777 crash.
Local media reported that fighting was also taking place in the towns of Snizhne and Torez, the two nearest mid-sized towns to the crash site.
In a separate development, Ukraine's National Security Council said on Sunday that government troops had encircled Horlivka, a key rebel stronghold, and that there had been fighting in other cities in the east. Horlivka lies about 30 kms north of the main rebel-held city of Donetsk.
The armed forces "have increased assaults on territory held by pro-Russian mercenaries, destroyed checkpoints and positions and moved very close to Horlivka," the council said in a statement.
A representative of the separatist military command in Donetsk confirmed that there had been fighting in Horlivka, but said that rebel fighters were holding their positions.
Reports of the intensifying unrest in eastern Ukraine prompted a postponement of a trip to the site by a team of Dutch and Australian police officers who had planned to start searching for evidence and the remaining bodies.
In the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said his government has rejected the idea of deploying armed troops to secure the crash site because there is no way they could achieve "military uperiority'' in a region where heavily armed pro-Russian rebels are battling Ukrainian government forces.
