MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The situation in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is quiet, the truce is being observed generally, representative of the DPR defence ministry Eduard Basurin told TASS on the phone on Sunday.
He added certain violations of the truce regime were seen near Debaltsevo.
Earlier on Sunday, speaker of the General Staff Vladislav Seleznev said firing at positions of the Ukrainian military has not been registered since 3 a.m.
The truce came into force at 00:00 Kiev time on Sunday, but already in an hour DPR said the Kiev military violated the regime in Debaltsevo as they opened fire at positions of DPR and LPR (Lugansk People’s Republic).
Combat actions between the Ukrainian military and militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) during Kiev’s punitive operation in the country’s east conducted since mid-April 2014 have claimed over 5,400 lives and nearly a million people had to flee their homes seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, mostly in Russia, according to the UN data.
Mediatory efforts of Russia and the OSCE yielded results on September 5, where talks between parties to the Ukrainian conflict were held in Belarusian capital city Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed his plan to settle the situation in eastern Ukraine.
On February 12, members of the Trilateral Contact Group on the Ukrainian conflict settlement signed a four-page set of measures to implement the earlier Minsk agreements.
The document was signed by OSCE Special Representative Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine’s second President Leonid Kuchma, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, as well as leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky. The first point of the document sets condition for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire beginning from 00:00 hours (Kiev time) on February 15, 2015. The conflicting parties agreed on withdrawal of all heavy weapons. Parties will pullback all heavy weapons to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the Tochka-U tactical rocket systems.