Ukrainian forces have raised their national flag over a police station in the city of Luhansk which was for months under rebel control, Kiev said on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.
Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said government forces fought separatists in a neighbourhood of Luhansk city on Saturday and took control of the Zhovtneviy neighbourhood police station, the AP reported. "They raised the state flag over it," Lysenko told a news briefing.
Ukrainian officials say the rebels are fighting a desperate rearguard action to hold on to Luhansk, which is their supply route into neighbouring Russia, and say the flow of weapons and fighters from Russia has accelerated, the AP reported.
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia were preparing to meet for talks on the conflict in Berlin on Sunday, though it seemed likely that the diplomacy could be overshadowed by fast-moving developments on the battlefield, according to the AP.
Russia denies helping the rebels and accuses Kiev, backed by the West, of triggering a humanitarian crisis through indiscriminate use of force against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject the Ukrainian government's rule, the AP reported.
A photograph posted on Twitter appeared to show a Ukrainian flag on the front of the police station, but it could not be independently verified, according to the AP.
Ukrainian troops have been closing in on the city from the outskirts, but had not previously been able to get forces inside the city limits, the AP reported. The separatists still control sections of the border linking Luhansk region to Russia.
The four-month-old conflict in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east has reached a critical phase, with Kiev and Western governments watching nervously to see if Russia will intervene in support of the increasingly besieged rebels, according to the AP.
Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian warplane, the AP reported. The pilot ejected and was located and recovered after a search.
