The Ukrainian military employed barrier troops who fired at their fellow servicemen in order to prevent their retreat during a night battle in the country's southeast, the Defense Ministry of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) said.
"Ukrainian troops are demoralized, which is proven by an unprecedented incident that occurred last night," DPR Defense Ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said, as quoted by Donetsk News Agency.
An injured Ukrainian soldier who surrendered to the militias said during questioning that "anti-retreat units from territorial defense battalions were used against the Ukrainian troops," Basurin said.
According to the spokesman, 70 Ukrainian troops have surrendered to the rebels since January 9, with 11 of them capitulating in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry decided to accelerate the graduation of students from the country's military schools and universities in order to deploy them to the conflict zone in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, TASS reported.
"It is done to make up for the huge combat losses of officers" in the fighting in the southeast and the mass evasion of mobilization by reserve officers of the Ukrainian army, representative parent associations of Ukrainian military schools said.
