Tensions are rising in Ukraine's southern port city of Mariupol. Ukrainian forces are expecting a major assault as pro-Russia rebels threaten to retake the city. Kitty Logan reports, reports GHN based on DW.
Compared to other cities affected by conflict in eastern Ukraine, the center of Mariupol is bustling. Shops are open, the streets full of cars and buses. People are going to work.
But echoing across the main Lenina Avenue is the sound of shelling. Just east of the city Ukrainian government forces are exchanging artillery fire with rebel troops. The rebel leadership in Donetsk has repeatedly threatened to retake Mariupol, which its forces previously held before being driven out by Ukrainian troops.
The newly elected rebel leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, says the Minsk ceasefire agreement is ambiguous in defining where separatist-held territory ends. He believes Mariupol belongs to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
The rebels, increasingly isolated in a pocket of land next to the Russian border with limited supplies, desperately need the southern port city to trade goods.