Prayer service held at St Sophia Square to remember Ilovaisk victims
A prayer service was held at St.Sophia square in Kyiv to commemorate the Ukrainian soldiers killed near Ilovaisk two years ago. According to a UNIAN correspondent, after the relatives of the victims spoke, a prayer service was held for the health of the living and for those who died near Ilovaisk.
Relatives of the victims also let white balloons in the sky as a symbol of peace, hope and a soul, which flies to heaven. They wrote on the balloons the words that they would like to convey to the soldiers who are in the “army of the Lord.”
According to Interfax-Ukraine, the event was attended by about a hundred widows and mothers of dead soldiers, fighters of volunteer battalions, activists.
On August 29 participants of the action plan to carry out an action under the Prosecutor General's Office and hope for a meeting with Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko to learn about the progress of the investigation of “Ilovaisk tragedy,” the formation of bills of indictment and the submission of cases to court.
As Hromadske.ua has reported, the anniversary of the release of the Ukrainian military from ilovaisk entrapment an exhibition "Outpost of memory” was organized."
"These are the belongings of the deceased soldiers, some of them was picked directly on the battlefield in Ilovaisk and near Ilovaisk. Each sleeve which is exposed - indicates the town, which our guys passed leaving through the so-called “green corridor,” said the exhibition organizer Pavlo Netyosov.
In front of St Michael's Cathedral volunteers made a small corridor of dried sunflowers - as a reminder of the path during the military out of the entrapment.
In late August 2014, after fierce fighting, the soldiers of the ATO forces were surrounded near Ilovaisk, Donetsk region. Ukrainian troops suffered significant losses. According to official data, 366 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 429 wounded, 128 captured and 158 missing.
Military prosecutor Anatoly Matios refused to give specific names and said that the main reason of “Ilovaisk tragedy” was the invasion in the territory of Ukraine over 3500 soldiers of the regular army of Russia without declaring war.
According to a preliminary report of the Interim Investigation Commission, the tragedy near Ilovaysk was a result of false appointments in the power block, inappropriate actions of Defense Minister Valeriy Geletey and Chief of Staff Viktor Muzhenko the day before, and that the president did not initiate martial law, according to Ukrainian Pravda.
