Fighting in Donetsk Near Malaysia Flight MH17 Site Leaves Four Dead

Fighting in Donetsk Near Malaysia Flight MH17 Site Leaves Four Dead
Mary Chastain

Four people died in Donetsk, the disputed Ukrainian region now home to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The rebels said Ukraine’s government is attempting to take over the city.

According to Reuters, Kiev claimed that no one sent in the Ukrainian army. Max Seddon from Buzzfeed reported that Kiev said it was a volunteer battalion that started the attack. However, Ukrainian military spokesman Vladislav Seleznev said the attack was planned to move the rebels away from the airport.

“This is a planned offensive,” he said. “Aviation and artillery are not aiming at civilian residences. Their only aim is to block the terrorists and fighters.”

The deaths occurred as a Grad rocket hit a civilian apartment complex, killing two men and two women. The Guardian‘s Shaun Walker reported that, in addition to the rocket attack, another nine-story building had been burning all day. Pro-Russian rebel groups told Walker that Ukrainian tanks had attempted to break into Donetsk in the morning. No one is guarding the victims of MH17 in the Torez train station, and the fighting will not make it easy for investigators to reach the MH17 site.

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