Prior to the
operation, Ukrainian security officials had discovered the city’s monastery,
the Svyatohirsk Assumption Lavra of the Moscow Patriarchate, served as a
military base for the insurgents who have besieged the region.
“The Interior Ministry’s special forces have freed the
town of Svyatohirsk from an illegal armed group of separatists. Law enforcers
who took part in the anti-terrorist operation drove the illegal armed groups
out of the village. There have been no casualties,” the ministry’s report
reads.
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Police are now patrolling and securing the city, it says.
Svyatohirsk is of strategic
importance, as it is located at the border of three regions: Donetsk, Kharkiv
and Luhansk.
Since the beginning of April armed
pro-Russian insurgents have seized and occupied key Ukrainian government
buildings in the country’s eastern regions. In recent days they have taken at least 16 persons, including
journalists, hostage, tightened their grip on the regions and promised a long
fight should Kyiv send in troops to force them out.
In Sloviansk, the latest flash point
in the Ukraine crisis, pro-Russian extremists on Wednesday showed no signs of backing down and warned that they will fight
to the end.
Separatist leader and self-appointed
mayor of Sloviansk Vyacheslav Ponomaryov reportedly told a
BBC journalist that “we will make Stalingrad out of this town,” referring to
the five-month-long, bloody World War II battle in which the Soviet Red Army
defeated the Nazis.
As Kyiv resumed its anti-terror operation,
Russia Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov issued a stern warning that his country
would “certainly respond” if Russians were attacked.
“Russian citizens being attacked is an attack
against the Russian Federation,” he said in an interview with the state-run Russia
Today.
“If our interests, our legitimate interests, the
interests of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South
Ossetia for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in accordance
with international law,” he said.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at miller@kyivpost.com, and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
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