LUHANSK, July 11. /ITAR-TASS/. A bus with miners came under artillery gun fire in Ukraine’s south-eastern Luhansk region, 16 people were wounded. Several casualties were reported, Director-General of Donbass fuel and energy company Maxim Timchenko reported on Friday.

“We decided to halt four coalmines in Luhansk region, where 4,500 people work, until we are sure that people safe,” he stated.

“A bus trafficking miners of Donbass fuel and energy company’s Chervonopartizanskaya coalmine to their workplace came under mortar and artillery gun fire at around 5.40pm local time (6.40pm Moscow time) on Thursday, July 10. The company’s personnel offers condolences to families of those killed,” the press service said.

Donbass fuel and energy company is one of largest energy companies in Ukraine. It is incorporated in financial and industrial group System Capital Management in which Ukrainian business tycoon Rinat Akhmetov is its shareholder. As many as 140 thousand people work in the company.

 

Ukraine reinforcing its positions on border with Russia’s Crimea

Ukrainian army keeps reinforcing its positions on the Crimean section of the state border with Russia, CrimeaInform reported from the Isthmus of Chongar which connects Crimea and the mainland.

“Operations are in full swing, Ukrainian military forces are digging trenches quickly. If separate firing points slightly deepened in the ground and imbedded with bags of sand were located at these places earlier, now these are full-scale trenches stretching in long lines at 100-200 metres one after another,” CrimeaInform reported.

No less than four lines of trenches are seen from Chongar deeply in Ukrainian territory, he said.