Azov battalion spearheads Ukrainian counter-offensive

Ukraines Azov Battalion, famed for its near-suicidal bravery andultra-nationalist views, is spearheading a Ukrainian counter-offensive along the countrys Black Sea coasttoday.

Posting a picture of their troops on Feb. 10 outside Pavlopil town hall, some 35kilometersnortheast of their base in the strategic port city of Mariupol, the battalion said that it had also seized the villages of Oktyabyr and Shyrokyne on their way to assault the Russian and separatist-held city of Novoazovsk.

Ukrainian flags are already flying on government buildings in Pavlopil, Oktyabyr and Shyrokyne, AzovBattalion press officer Andrii Biletskovo told the Kyiv Post live from the offensive.

Our exact position now is secret, but were going all the way to Novoazovsk.

With Russian-backed forces focused on a fierce battleto wrest control ofthe strategic railwaycity of Debaltseve from Ukraine, the battalion has surged forward along the coast, pushing Russian-backed forces all the way to the town of Sakhanka.

We have absolute control of these places and there is no more resistance, Biletskovo said.

At Sakhanka itself, the AzovBattalion said that Russian-backed forces were fighting back with armor and heavy caliber weapons.

The front around Mariupol has been relatively quiet since Kremlin-backed separatists launched flurries of rockets at a city suburb on Jan. 24, killing 30 people and wounding another hundred.

Forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic have since poured massed artillery fire on Debaltseve, sending tanks and troops in to capture the towns outlying villages in an attempt to cut off the 8,000 Ukrainian troops dug in there.

The head of UkrainesNational Security and Defense Council, Oleksander Turchynov, was in the Mariupol vicinity on Feb. 10 in order to coordinate the government assault.

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Azov battalion spearheads Ukrainian counter-offensive