Three Dead as Ukrainian Forces Repulse Mariupol Attack

Preliminary figures indicate that three attackers were killed, 13 were injured and 63 were arrested as a result of a Ukrainian interior ministry operation in response to an assault on a National Guard base in Mariupol, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has reported on Facebook.

"Mariupol: interior units conducted an operation overnight to isolate a group of around 300 assailants, in response to an attack on a National Guard base in Mariupol,” Avakov wrote. “After the attackers threw incendiary bombs and Molotov cocktails at the military base and opened fire on sentries, the National Guardsmen fired warning shots. When the attack was repeated, they fired shots in earnest after issuing the prescribed warnings.”

Avakov says that “all police units in Mariupol were called in”, and that the now armed police and National Guardsmen undertook joint action, so that “after a brief battle, the attaking group was dispersed, largely isolated and disarmed”.

“The interior ministry personnel suffered no casualties. Preliminary figures indicate that three of the attackers died, 13 were injured and 63 detained. Weapons, communications equipment and Russian mobile phones were seized. The identities of the detainees are being established,” Avakov said.

“The operation is ongoing,” he continued. “A special interior ministry unit is still pursuing one of the armed groups. Police are patrolling the streets… the Ukrainian Security Service and the police are documenting the facts of the incident,”

Given that this was “such an aggressive attack on a military base”, the interior ministry forces had earlier been reinforced by an Omega spetsnaz unit flown in by helicopter.

This article republished from Ukrainska Pravda with kind permission.

Original article in Ukrainian.