DONETSK, November 10. /TASS/. School No. 63 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where two teenagers recently died in shelling, will continue its operation, the education minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said Sunday.
“Education of children will continue there, the building sustained minor damage. Compensation will be paid to the families of killed and injured children,” Igor Kostenok said.
He said the buildings of five kindergartens and two schools were recently damaged in artillery shellings of Donetsk. “These are mainly smashed windows and destroyed roofs,” he said.
The school was shelled on November 5. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a spot report November 7 that the shelling of the Donetsk school, which left two children dead, was carried out from the northwestern direction.
“In the SMM’s (Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine) assessment," shells "were fired from a location north-west of the football pitch and were the result of high-angle fire,” the OSCE said.
On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it was launching criminal proceedings over school shelling in Donetsk, interpreting it as an international crime.
Investigators said servicemen of Ukraine’s armed forces and national guard, on an order from their commanders and Defense Ministry, army and national guard officials, carried out an aimed artillery shelling of high school No. 63 on Stepanenko Street in Donetsk.
Fierce clashes between troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April, to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics, have killed over 4,000 people.
A ceasefire was agreed upon at OSCE-mediated talks on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk. The ceasefire took effect the same day but has reportedly occasionally been violated.
The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum on September 19 in Minsk, which 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 document in particular includes 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.