Fighting rages in Slaviansk as G7 meets

Fighting has raged for 24 hours. The area is a strategically located separatist stronghold.
Pix: wikimedia.org

A hastily-arranged summit in Brussels, by the G7 industrial nations, say they will impose more damaging economic sanctions on Russia over its ‘systematic infringement’ of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The G-7 leaders sat down to their first meeting without Russia in 17 years, since Russia was expelled from the group following its annexation of Crimea in March.

On the sidelines of the meeting, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, will meet Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin today and advise him to end Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister will hold face-to-face talks with the Russian leader in Paris ahead of the 70th D-Day anniversary commemorations.

US President, Barack Obama has met key European allies Thursday, with the Ukraine crisis top of the agenda.
While in Ukrainian, government forces battled separatists with artillery and automatic weapons in and around Slaviansk, forcing many residents to flee.

Anti-terrorist operation

The government, trying to break rebellions by pro-Russia separatists, said over 300 rebels had been killed in the past 24 hours in the “anti-terrorist operation”, thought the rebels denied this, saying losses among the Ukrainian forces exceeded theirs.

Yahoo news reports that at an army checkpoint on the edge of town, heavy artillery shelling could be heard while a plume of black smoke rose above the outskirts. Automatic gunfire rattled out from nearby fields.

Families fled the fighting through a barbed-wire checkpoint with only as much as they could carry. “It’s a mess,” sobbed a young woman as she clutched her husband’s arm. “It’s war.”

INews a while back reported that Russia was ready to go to war over Crimea.