Fighting at Donetsk airport under way – Ukrainian military operation press center
Kyiv's armed opponents have resumed the shelling of the new terminal of Donetsk airport, where observers from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) are heading, the press center of the military operation in eastern Ukraine reported on Thursday.
"The new terminal of Donetsk airport […] is being fired upon now. A battle is under way. At the same time, OSCE mission members are planning to arrive at the airport any minute," the antiterrorist operation press center said on its Facebook account on Thursday.
The statement authors claimed that the militants intended to fire at the OSCE monitors from the new terminal, "so as to accuse the Ukrainian side of this crime" later.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the operation in eastern Ukraine, said "members of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination at the contact line, which includes Russian and Ukrainian military officers and OSCE representatives, have arrived at Donetsk airport and are approaching the old terminal."
However, as Lysenko said at a news conference on Thursday, the fighting near the new terminal was continuing, and "the separatists could fire at mission members and provoke a scandal."
The government forces are making great efforts to hold the airport, and "there has been no order to give up the airport," he said.
Self-proclaimed Donetsk people's republic (DPR) head Oleksandr Zakharchenko had said earlier on Thursday that the militants were about to take full control of the airport within half an hour.
The exchange of fire within the airport area is continuing now.
An Interfax correspondent reported that several artillery projectiles hit the airport territory at about 2:15 p.m. Moscow time, and shots could still be heard around it.