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No use of heavy weapons near Donetsk since Monday - OSCE report

According to the United Nations, more than 4,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled Ukraine’s southeast

© Valery Sharifulin / TASS

VIENNA, December 17. /TASS/. Monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have registered no use of heavy armaments near Donetsk since Monday, the OSCE said in a daily report of its Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine posted on the organization’s website.

“In the JCCC [Joint Centre for Control and Coordination] in Donetsk city, the Russian and Ukrainian officers and “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”) members present all said that there had not been any reported use of heavy weapons in their sector for the past two days,” the report said.

According to the United Nations, more than 4,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled Ukraine’s southeast as a result of clashes between Ukrainian troops and local militias in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April, to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire at talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk.

The ceasefire took effect the same day but has reportedly been violated on numerous occasions. In another attempt by both parties to the Ukrainian conflict to put an end to hostilities, the "day of silence" in eastern Ukraine began at 09:00 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) on December 9.

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