Thus in the battle for
Ilovaisk, Ukrainian state forces were soundly defeated.
According to Butusov, the fighter pilot had bombed Russian paratroops during the battle of
Ilovaisk in August 2014, a battle considered to be one of the bloodiest in the Donbass conflict.
On the other hand, Western sanctions have proved strong enough to deter Russia from most of the more extreme forms of military escalation, such as the two overt interventions in August 2014 (the Battle at
Ilovaisk) and January-February 2015 (Battle of Debaltseve).
When the stalemated battle in the city of
Ilovaisk was slowly moving Kiev's way, conventional Russian soldiers and weapons were fast-tracked to the frontline in what would turn out to be one of the deadliest days for Ukrainian troops in the war.
When Ukrainian forces in the summer of 2014 advanced into Donbass and took the strategically located city of
Ilovaisk, Putin promptly called in his own crack troops, which quickly decimated the Ukrainian unit that had taken the town.
"It has been confirmed that incendiary rockets were used in
Ilovaisk and the village of Luhanskoye, in the Southeast in August and October 2014," he said.
| Prisoners of War remove debris from a damaged building in the |town of Illovaysk, eastern Ukraine, the rebel government has in recent weeks begun using captured army soldiers in their push to restore the battle-ravaged city of
Ilovaisk DMITRY LOVETSKY
The report is the first official confirmation of the scale of a defeat in the city of
Ilovaisk that critics of the country's military command have described as the result of disastrous leadership.
The smashed tanks, APCs and trucks were part of a massive column fleeing after being encircled in the town of
Ilovaisk, which the Ukrainian government was compelled to concede after weeks of battles.
Ukrainian volunteer battalions said soldiers had been waving white flags when they were fired on from all sides as they left
Ilovaisk. Rebels launched new assaults last week, said to have been bolstered by equipment and manpower sent by Moscow.