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Anti-Russian sanctions

Azov volunteer battalion still shelling DPR with 122mm howitzers - DPR defence ministry

A few days ago fighters of the nationalist battalion Azov were reinforced by a battery howitzers of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, allegedly withdrawn earlier from the line of contact in line

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. Fighters of the Ukrainian Azov volunteer battalion continue shelling the village of Shirokino in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic /DPR/ with 122mm howitzers, the spokesman for the DPR defence ministry told a briefing on Saturday.

"A few days ago fighters of the nationalist battalion Azov were reinforced by a battery of 122mm D-30 howitzers of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, allegedly withdrawn earlier from the line of contact in line with the Minsk agreements," Eduard Basurin said.

"That battery using the tactics of manoeuvres keeps shelling the residential areas and positions deep into our territory along the line of contact," he said. "Moreover, they open fire both at night and in daytime when the battery changes its location to keep out of the OSCE sight."

Growing cases of violations of the ceasefire by Ukrainian military and open ignorance of OSCE observers have coincided with the Verkhovna Rada’s approval of an appeal to the UN and the European Union to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine, he said.

"That is why we regard the growth of Kiev’s provocative actions as a wish to discredit the OSCE mission in Ukraine and to replace it with Western peacekeepers," Basurin said.

The DPR registered over 180 violations of the ceasefire regimen by Ukrainian military.

"Their tragic result is that 14 people were killed and another 25 civilians and the republic’s militiamen wounded," Basurin said.

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Sanctions vs. Russia

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