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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Militia announces withdrawal of considerable forces of Ukrainian army from DPR territory

ITAR-TASS does not have available a confirmation of this information from other sources

© EPA/ROMAN PILIPEY

DONETSK, September 03. /ITAR-TASS/. Considerable forces of the Ukrainian army and National Guard have been withdrawn from the territory of the proclaimned Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Novorossia agency reports referring to the DPR militia headquarters.

"For the time being, we are unable to explain the meaning of the maneuver," Novorossia quotes the militia headquarters report. "Security forces, possibly, have decided to concentrate on the defense of Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk Regions; or, possibly, they want to regroup forces and rearrange units, or they have become convinced altogether of the hopelessness of attacks on DPR".

"Security forces, according to reconnaissance data, have abandoned all checkpoints along the Donetsk-Mariupol road. They have fortifications intact only at the entrance to Mariupol," the reports says. "Earlier, militia dislodged security forces from Yelenovka. Security personnel then abandoned Volnovakha, as well as Maryinka and Kurakovo, south-west of Donetsk. A column of punitive troops' hardware was retreating through Kurakovo for 12 hours. In Starobeshevo District, security forces abandoned Starobeshevo, Maryanovka, Novy Svet, Styly, Novokaterinovka, Shirokoye, and Komsomolskoye".

ITAR-TASS does not have available a confirmation of this information from other sources.

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Donetsk Eastern Ukraine

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