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Bus shelling in Donbas confirms the need to settle Ukrainian crisis — Russian ForMin

The tragedy in Volnovakha confirms once again that all-out efforts on peaceful political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis should be continued, the statement says

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. The shelling of a bus in Volnovakha in the Donetsk Region on Tuesday confirms once again that efforts to settle the Ukrainian crisis should be continued, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a comment posted on its website.

“Moscow perceived the report of a tragic incident involving a passenger bus in Volnovakha in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, when artillery shelling killed 12 and wounded 18 people, with deep regret,” the ministry said.

“We express our condolences to the near and dear of those killed, wish those wounded the soonest recovery. We are calling to conduct a thorough and objective, with international participation, investigation of the crime and bring those guilty to account,” it said.

“The tragedy in Volnovakha confirms once again that all-out efforts on peaceful political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis should be continued,” the document said.

“The use of criminal provocations to create pretexts to foment the situation, militarist hysteria and resume hostilities in south-east Ukraine leading to death and suffering of regional residents can't be allowed,” it said.

The passenger bus bound from Donetsk to Zlatoustovka was shelled on January 13.

Crisis in eastern Ukraine

Kiev’s military operation designed to regain control over the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine’s south-east on the border with Russia, which call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People's republics, conducted since mid-April 2014, has left thousands of people dead, brought destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee.

The parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire during talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on September 5, 2014 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.

Numerous violations of the ceasefire, which took effect the same day, have been reported since.

A memorandum was adopted on September 19, 2014 in Minsk by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE. The document outlined the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5.

The nine-point memorandum in particular envisioned a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibers of over 100 millimeters to a distance of 15 kilometers from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions.

A "day of silence" in eastern Ukraine began at 09:00 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) on December 9 last year. It was seen as another attempt by both parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict to put an end to hostilities.