Day of Remembrance of Ukraine’s Defenders marked today
It was established “in support of public initiatives and with a view to worthily honoring the memory of service people and members of volunteer formations who died fighting for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, perpetuating their heroism, strengthening the patriotic spirit in society...” in accordance with the presidential decree of August 23, 2019.
These August days of 2014 witnessed the climax of the Ilovaisk tragedy, when the Ukrainian armed units were surrounded as a result of the confrontation with the Russian troops.
The fighting for the important strategic object of Donbas, the town of Ilovaisk, lasted from mid-August. The Ukrainian servicemen almost managed to seize the city, but the Russian army intervened. Moscow did not plan to surrender the important strategic object, so it threw the regular army against the Ukrainians.
The battalions of the Ukraine’s Interior Ministry "Dnipro-1", "Myrotvorets", "Svityaz", "Kherson", "Ivano-Frankivsk", National Guard’s battalion “Donbas” and sector B forces were besieged as a result of invasion of regular units of the Russian Armed Forces and their march in the direction of Ilovaisk town. On August 28, the situation of our military became critical. The same day, President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of the open armed invasion of Donbas.
According to the report of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, the invasion of Russian troops of the territory of Ukraine took place during August 24-29, 2014 and the contingent included 3,500 servicemen, 60 tanks, 320 airborne armored infantry fighting vehicles (infantry fighting vehicles), 60 units of weaponry, 45 mortars, 5 anti-tank missile systems.
Meanwhile, on August 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin, pretending to be a peacemaker, suggested that the Russian-backed militants would open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian servicemen, which they could escape the siege through. In fact, Putin's "green corridor" became the road of death for Ukrainian troops as a lot of soldiers were killed in it.
The death toll varies even today. According to the official data, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 429 soldiers were wounded, 128 were taken captive and 158 soldiers more went missing during the Ilovaisk operation and the subsequent shooting in the so-called “green corridor.”
