Wednesday results in the occupied territories of Donbass. The highlights

Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 16 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbass on August 15, the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update. The enemy opened aimed fire from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to attack the defenders of the towns of Svitlodarsk, Marinka, Avdiivka, and Krasnohorivka. They also shelled the villages of Krymske, Novozvanivka, Luhanske, Maiorsk, Opytne, Pisky, Novotroyitske, Novomykhailivka, Chermalyk, Hnutove, Lebedynske, Pavlopil, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne. Along with this, the enemy attacked the defenders of Svitlodarsk and Hnutove, using 120mm mortars, while the defenders of Krymske, Luhanske and Hnutove came under 82mm mortar fire. Another provocation was also recorded near the disengagement area in the village of Stanytsia Luhanska, where the occupiers open fire on the Ukrainian positions, using small arms.

Four "LNR" militants were killed and 10 were injured in an explosion at ammunition depot near Zholobok settlement in the occupied Luhansk region. The incident took place on Tuesday evening. This was reported by Luhansk separatist Nikolay Vulich, familiar with the operational situation, in his blog. "Today, 14.08.18 at 8.30 p.m., an explosion of ammunition took place at the position 4 of the separate motor rifle brigade near Zholobok. We have heavy losses – 4 IFVs were burned completely, 4 of our guys were killed and about 10 received injures of various degrees of severity. The cause of this tragedy is being determined", - he wrote.

In the occupied part of the Donetsk oblast, billboards with a list of nonexistent "competitive advantages of the republic" appeared. According to the "Ministry of Economic Development of the DNR", such advantages are "developed infrastructure", "choices for investors", "promising link in the integration chain", "high demand for high-quality high-tech products", "industrial raw materials base" and a number of other resources, for the creation of which the "republic" made no effort. Consistently killing the industrial and personnel potential of the occupied territories, the invaders present the processes of obvious degradation as the achieved prosperity.

The Maiorske checkpoint may be closed due to the militants’ violating the ceasefire agreement. This possibility is not ruled out by the headquarters of the JFO. The Horlivka-Bakhmut road remains one of the main humanitarian routes in the Donetsk oblast, which is used by more than 250,000 people every month. But, neglecting first of all the security of the civilian population, only in the last three months, three provocative shelling were carried out by the enemy.

According to the Hydrometeorological Service, during July 2018, the average monthly concentrations of harmful substances in the atmospheric air of the occupied Donetsk exceeded the average daily maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of nitrogen dioxide (hazard class 2) by 2.3 times, formaldehyde (hazard class 2) by 2.7 times, dust (hazard class 3) by 1.8 times and ammonia (class 4 hazard) by 1.3 times.