Pro-Russians open supply line in eastern Ukraine

Pro-Russian forces say they have opened up a supply line between the restive cities of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.

Separatist leader, Andrei Sakhartshenko, said on Saturday that their next objective is to break the Ukrainian army’s blockade of the city of Lugansk.

Meanwhile, Ukraine‘s National Security and Defense Council said military operations against pro-Russia forces would continue until all areas held by them are recaptured.

The Ukrainian army says it will continue the war until pro-Russia protesters completely end their struggle in Donetsk. But the pro-Russia forces have pledged to keep fighting until no Ukrainian troop is left in region.

This comes as the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has accused Ukraine of deliberately stalling Russian humanitarian aid.

“At the moment, the Donetsk People’s Republic has a very bad humanitarian situation and the help that Russia is sending us and we have still not received, we just need it like air,” Alexander Zakharchenko said at a briefing in Donetsk on Thursday.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since the government in Kiev launched military operations in mid-April in a bid to crush the pro-Russia protests.

The political unrest in eastern Ukraine has so far claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people, according to figures by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Nearly 300,000 people have been also forced to flee their homes due to fierce fighting in the east, according to the UN.